


Welcome home

by Ciulla96



Category: Pocket Monsters: Sun & Moon | Pokemon Sun & Moon Versions
Genre: F/M, Post-Game(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-01-02
Updated: 2017-06-25
Packaged: 2018-09-14 06:17:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 10
Words: 40,631
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9165703
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ciulla96/pseuds/Ciulla96
Summary: You turn to him and stare blankly. He waves a hand in the air, trying to explain himself. "You're leaving. It’s because of me, isn’t it? You’re running away from me”.





	1. Sad night

**Author's Note:**

> This is my first work here!  
> English is not my first language, so there may be some mistakes. Hope you enjoy anyway!

The night is too cold in the Alola region. After traveling for months in every weather and at any time of the day you’re used to it, but lying motionless in the grass covered in hoarfrost still isn’t enjoyable. Ignoring it, you watch silently the sky sprinkled with stars and you admire the shining moon, huge and bright, sometimes obscured by the shadow of your trustworthy Decidueye who oversees the surroundings to protect you from wild Pokemons. That funny, big owl is the only one who truly understands you, the only one who knows your doubts, your indecisions, your anxieties about your future. You’ve become the Alola champion and the islands of the region have no longer secrets for you, everything that happens is now part of an everyday life that you love and hate at the same time; you’ve lived extraordinary and unique adventures, you’ve grown as a person and as a trainer and you’ve done all this alone with only your Pokemons, without any other constant in your travelling from city to city apart from them.  
Or rather, with only a constant apart from them, a person that you would like to erase from your memory and hug and never let him go at the same time. Because, even though admitting it is even more distressing, in every moment of your life, even when you were feeling most lonely, you never were. Wherever you set your feet this person was always there a step behind you, leading you toward your new adventures and discoveries, pretending to let you go on your own but then following you step by step, inaugurating your victory in the league with the best battle ever.  
This person, Kukui, has never left you alone for a moment. He introduced you – in an absurd disguise – in the world of Battles Royale, he threw you like a sacrifice against the boss of the Skull Team, he led you in every new place and gradually, without you even noticing, he found himself a comfortable spot in your heart from which you can no longer send him away. And you really wish to send him away, you really want to; that grateful and uncertain feeling you had for him has slowly grown in your chest, covering all your other emotions and thoughts. You’ve fallen in love with him, you had no choice, and that’s why you’d love to run away and live new experiences that can make you forget him – because he belongs to another woman, because being forced to see his smile everyday can make you happy and distressed at the same time, because beyond what your feelings for him are, Kukui is a truly important person in your life and your biggest dream is to be able to stay in his company without the risk of bursting into tears every time.  
A tear falls on your cheek and you don’t bother drying it. Over your head, your Decidueye stops his flight, looking at you as if he could understand even from that distance your anxiety and pain. You raise your arm and put your thumb up in his direction, smiling, pretending everything is fine, but your loyal mate has no reason nor will to believe you. He understands your desire of being alone though, and he flies away once again, going out of your sight with a flatter of his wings. Slowly you lower your arm resting it on the grass, closing your eyes and letting more tears out, tears that warm your frozen face.  
“Sad night?”, a familiar voice asks. You immediately open your eyes wide and you see the professor who was populating your melancholic thoughts, turned over because of your position. You quickly sit down and wipe your tears with one arm. You try to stand up but Kukui stops you, placing a warm hand on your shoulder and sitting on the grass right next to you. “Stay there, cousin. I’m coming down”, he says.  
You try to relax as the professor slowly stretches out on the grass in the same position you were in before, inviting you to do the same with a smile and a gesture of his hand. You hesitantly imitate him by lounging at his side. You stay there a few moments looking at the stars together, while his proximity makes you feel even more sad and confused than you were before. You cannot help but start weeping again, silently, hoping that the professor won’t notice it, but your hopes are crushed as Kukui sighs and put an arm under your neck and around your shoulders, briefly hugging you.  
“I’ve been looking for you for a while before I found you”, he tells you, and you look at him in surprise. You thought he had met you by chance but, actually, there aren’t many reasons as to why a person should be around so late during the night. “Were you looking for me?”, you mutter. He nods. “Your mum called me to ask if I knew where you were… She feared you had left again without saying it. I told her I hadn’t heard from you for a while, then I looked out of the window and I saw your Decidueye flying around… I was worried about you so I decided to come, but I lost him at a certain point and I went a bit blind”.  
You silently nod. You feel sorry for worrying him and feel bad about getting him out that late, but you don’t know what to say and you don’t trust your voice. Kukui doesn’t seem to appreciate your silence, though, and he wants to find a way to make you speak at any cost. “So, what’s wrong, cousin?” He asks. You just shake your head. “Sad night” you say, using his same words. He sighs and frees you from his comforting hug and you suddenly feel even lonelier than you felt before. He elegantly put his hands behind his head and only then you notice his clothing, which is quite normal for him but unusual considering the time of the day. As usual his chest is bare under the unbuttoned white coat and you don’t understand how he cannot be freezing.  
“Professor, aren’t you cold?” You ask. “I am, and I wear a sweater and a jacket!”  
You shouldn’t have said that. Kukui quickly takes his lab coat off, using it as a blanket to cover you. “I’m sorry, I should have imagined you were cold. I haven’t thought about that”, he apologizes, and you softly laugh as you try to give it back to him, even though he refuses to take it. “Professor, what are you doing? You’ll get cold!”  
“I’m never cold, cousin. I’m always hot”, he answers, and you blush at that sentence, wrapping yourself better in the coat. You start feeling warm now, surrounded by his wonderful smell of which you’d never get enough – you’re having a hard time trying not to think of the fact that he’s half-naked next to you though.  
You shyly smile at him, your face still wet, and he smiles you back, fondly. “Why were you crying?” He asks then, and you know he’ll insist until he gets an answer – he cares too much about everything and everyone to just let it go. You decide to give him a half-truth. “I’m just confused”, you say. “I don’t know what to do. I don’t know if I should stay here or go visit another region, I don’t know if I should keep training my Pokemons or stop with fights… I know nothing”.  
He probably expected that answer and he nods with a sad smile. “I can’t help you with this”, he whispers looking at the sky, “That’s a decision you have to make on your own. What I can tell you is that everyone here will support you whatever decision you take”.  
“You too?” You can’t help but ask, anxiously. “Yeah, me too”, he answers seriously. “Especially me. You’re important to me, you know, and wherever you go there will be something that will never change. When you come back, I’ll always have a place you can call home”.  
You blush and nod, feeling a bit better, trying to stand up from your comfortable position. “Thank you, professor. I think I’ll go home now. I don’t want to worry my mum”.  
“Not so fast, cousin”, he stops you, catching your arm. “It doesn’t make sense to me. You’re a strong girl… You’ve reached incredible goals in only seven months, none could have done the same. You’ve become the first League champion after the Rite of Island Challenges and you’ve come back laughing despite all the difficulties. You never doubted yourself, you never gave in and, above all, you never cried. Do you really think that I could believe you were crying just because you’re confused?”  
You keep silent, looking at him in the eyes. He lets your arm go and sighs. “If you don’t want to confide in me, that’s fine. Just, please, remember that if you need anything, I’m here for you”.  
“Thank you”, you whisper. You are hoping to end that difficult conversation and you welcome with a smile the landing of you Decidueye. He hoots in happiness – he enjoys so much night flights.  
You smile at him. “Shall we go home?” You ask and he nods. You look at Kukui again. “Thank you, professor, thank you for your help and your words. Thank you for everything”. He smiles, and in front of his face full of affection you truly understand that staying in Alola isn’t a possible choice. If you stay where you can see him, you won’t be able to forget him and forgetting him is the only way you can be happy. If you stay on the island you’d inevitably end up searching his smile every moment, you’d live only to see him and you’d break your heart everyday, until there would be nothing else to break. You’re too young and you don’t know how to face your feelings, so the only thing left to do is leaving. You are running away, but it’s necessary and now that you’ve realized it you are looking forward to it, so you can start living again.  
When you’re in front of your doorstep, after Kukui silently walked you back, you tell him your decision without thinking twice about it. “I’ll go to Kalos”, you say. “I’ll fight, I’ll try winning the Pokemon League… Then I’ll come back or I’ll move on and go to another region… I’ll see”.  
He nods, looking sad. You throw him his lab coat and try getting into your house, but his voice stops you again. “That’s because of me, isn’t it?”.  
You turn to him and stare blankly. He waves a hand in the air, trying to explain himself. “You're leaving. It’s because of me, isn’t it? You’re running away from me”.  
You look at him carefully. You look at his darkened, serious eyes, you look at his lips, that aren’t smiling anymore but are not, therefore, less beautiful. You can see a sort of hardness in his face that you have never seen before, a regret that you did not believe he had any reason to feel. Maybe he feels guilty because he feels he is the reason that is making you leave, maybe he just feels sad because, after all, he loves you, just not in the way you would like him to do though. You answer sincerely, maybe hoping that one last confession could change things.  
"Yes", you say. Simple, concise. There is no need to say anything else, he understands.  
While he walks away giving you his back, you cannot help but start crying again. He turns to face you, a few meters ahead, and he smiles at you, trying to give you strength.  
Hardly, you smile, too. After all, when you say goodbye to someone you love, you have to show them one last smile.

 

*  *  *

 

You stay up almost all night.  You lay in the bed without getting sleep for hours, overwhelmed by the memories of your painful meeting, full of love and sadness.  
When you came home, despite the hour, your worried mum was still up waiting. She saw your tears and without saying a word she hugged you; you didn’t wonder if she didn’t ask anything because she already knew the reason of your pain or because she didn’t care – it wasn’t important. You hugged her back, you tried to take all the consolation you could from those arms that once upon a time, in your too far away childhood, were able to get rid of any problem you had. Unfortunately, growing up, your mind has made them lose that wonderful magic and yesterday night all you could do was to wait for your tears to stop dropping and wetting her pajamas.  
You went to bed soon after. Alone, lying on the duvet, you were no longer able to cry. You kept silent, as if you were emptied, thinking of your professor and still smelling around you the wonderful scent of his coat.  
When you fall asleep, the sun has already risen.  
You wake up after only a few hours of sleep and after getting dressed you wearily go downstairs. In the kitchen, you find your mother waiting for you; as soon as she sees you she smiles and hands you an envelope. “Professor Kukui was here", she tells you, and you wince to the name. "He left this for you."  
Curious and frightened by its possible content you grab the letter and go back to your room, where you impatiently open it.

 

_Yo cousin!_  
_Forgive me for my letter, but I couldn’t sleep tonight and I was able to think about our conversation._  
_I care about you, you know. I tried to show you how much I do during this months. I did my best to assist you, even though I see that the message hasn’t been really understood despite all I did._  
_I’ll simply go straight to the point. You told me I was right, you’re running away from me, and saying that, well, you didn’t literally break my heart – that would be an exaggeration – but it was not enjoyable nonetheless. I spend my life and my time encouraging the love of young people toward the world of Pokemons and I always try to be as likable as possible... What have I done wrong to be so obnoxious to you?_

You can’t believe what you’re reading. Love is blind, but you would have never thought that professor Kukui could be that stupid! You thought that the night before he had realized that saying that you were running away from him you implicitly meant to confess your love... And instead of this, he had understood something totally different! You keep reading, feeling, somehow, terribly guilty.

 

 _Well, as you probably guessed last night, I already suspected you didn’t like me. I had figured it_ _as I saw your behavior with me and with others: every time you did not see me you were happy, you laughed and joked with everyone, but whenever I arrived you would just stop talking, as if you were a different person. I tried to ignore it, I told myself so many times that I had not done anything wrong to you and that it was not possible for you to hate me. I tried to make you understand how important you were to me and how significant your approval was by supporting you more than I’ve ever done with anyone else... And yet you never opened up with me as all of your friends did, you always refused the help that I offered you, you’ve become more and more independent. I have admired you by far and I’ve waited for months for any clue that could give me a glimpse of your affection._  
_The battle against you at the league gave me hope. It was the best fight I've had in many years, perhaps in my entire life. And you smiled, you were having fun, and I thought I had created a contact between us... Boy, was I mistaken! But what have I done wrong?_  
_I do not really expect you to answer – I doubt in any case that you have a logical answer. I just want to tell you that after all, given the circumstances, I understand your desire to leave. The contacts with the professor of the region are important for a Pokemon Trainer, especially for a trainer as good and skilled as you are. There are the reports on the completion of the Pokedex, the management of the Pokemons in the boxes, there are too much reasons that would force you to see me too often if you stayed here in Alola. And, as I understood, that’s the only reason for your leaving._  
_You have your family here, your friends. You're young, and you should stay next to them. I will do anything possible to make you stay: I was offered a job in Sinnoh a few months ago, with plenty of time to accept it, which I decided I will. I want to give you the opportunity to stay, if that's what you want, no matter what. That’s perhaps the only way to make you understand how much I care about you._  
_I’m leaving in a few weeks. You may come and say goodbye when the time comes. That would mean a lot to me._  
_Thank you anyway for the great experience that we shared together._  
_Wish you best._  
_Kukui_

 

When you leave your home, slamming the door behind you, your mum does not even try to stop you. She’s used to these sudden escapes and probably she merely hopes that this time you will be back before night.  
For the first time since the beginning of your unrequited love, you’re happy that the laboratory where Kukui lives is so close to your home. The run takes you only half a minute, so you soon arrive in front of his door, breathless and with your shoes covered in sand. You’ve always thought the beach was a strange place to build a house, but you must admit that waking up in the morning and immediately enjoying the sea breeze has to be magnificent. Not dwelling too much on your thoughts, you knock on the professor's door and just as you wait for him to open you realize that you have not even decided what to tell him. You just want to clear up the misunderstanding and to let him know that you don’t want him to leave because of you. You want him to know how important he is to you and if, in the end, he’ll understand the truth and decide to leave anyway, at least it will be for a real reason.  
When Kukui opens the door you almost burst out laughing in his face. Despite the hour, it is pretty clear that he was sleeping: he doesn’t wear his usual hat with rainbow nor his garish glasses, his hair is loose and tousled and his look is sleepy. He’s so different from the last time you saw him, although it has been only a few hours. What calls your attention is the fact that he’s wearing only his pants, the same he was wearing earlier in the night, and you cannot help but ask yourself if he didn’t change them because he was too tired after bringing you the letter or if he wore them before opening the door just because he’s used to sleep without. You blush at the thought but you don’t look down, in fact, you fix your eyes on his while you wait for him to focus and recognize you.   
"Oh, it’s you", he mutters after a while. He steps aside with a yawn and invites you to come in, which you do without any embarrassment – Kukui uses his laboratory as a meeting place for all the local trainers, so you’ve already been there a number of times. You see him going to the bathroom, and you sit at the table patiently waiting; you would like to think about what to say, but you're too nervous and you cannot put order in your mind.  
After a few minutes he’s out of the bathroom and, apart from the still missing coat, he’s the same as always. He approaches you and sits in front of you, with his torso leaning forward in your direction and his legs slightly apart. "I'm leaving in a couple of weeks. It was not necessary to come and say goodbye right now. " His voice sounds a little sarcastic, but you can hear the sadness in it and it makes you feel even more guilty than before.  
"You don’t have to leave", you mutter. Kukui opens his mouth but you stop him holding up a hand in front of his face; now that you've started talking you do not want to be stopped or you’ll be too embarrassed to continue. "Let me speak, please. You don’t have to leave, first of all because even if you were obnoxious to me, that would be my problem, not yours. In addiction, you’re not obnoxious. Not at all. I recognize and appreciate everything you did for me and please, believe me, you’re anything but unpleasant or unwelcome or any of those negative adjectives you used in that letter. What I mean is that yes, I'm leaving, but I’ll come back when the time comes, and then I will be more than happy to see you again. I really want to see you again".  
You almost haven’t breathed during your short and rapid speech. Kukui looks puzzled. "But... You said that you were running away from me."  
You nod. "Yes, but not because I don’t like you".  
The professor looks at you and leans even more forward, making you wince. "I don’t understand".  
Safe in the knowledge that you won’t see him for a long time, you decide to put your cards on the table and to confide him your most guarded secret. You do it because you'll have time to be alone and cry on his probably unfeeling reaction, you do it because you hope for a sweet smile just for you, you do it to surprise him, or maybe you do it just because in that way you will be sure that despite all the young people who will come, he will always remember you as special.  
"I'm in love with you, Professor." He suddenly draws back opening his eyes wide and, surprised, you see him blushing in embarrassment – you have never thought it possible.   
He opens his mouth and after a while he starts to stutter. "But... But... I'm m-married..."  
His reaction makes you giggle and you're surprised at how well you feel without that on your conscience. "I know, Professor. That's why I'm leaving", you reassure him and you see the understanding on his face as he begins to merge your various statements and to give them sense. "You’re running away from me because it hurts you to be next to me every day", he murmurs, and he seems even sadder than before. He shakes his head slowly. "I see. Thanks for telling me, but that doesn’t change things. You should stay".  
"Professor", you say as you try to reason with him, "If you leave, when will you come back to Alola?"  
"When I retire, or when I get fired", he replies without hesitation. "In any case, given the type of contract I was offered, not before ten years have passed."  
"Well, I’ll be back in a couple of years", you say with a smile. "And in a couple of years I probably will not be in love with you anymore, but you will still be one of the most important people in my life. I’ll probably want to see you, and how could I see you if you were that far away? Who will I trust? I may not have been good at showing it to you in these months, but to me your help was crucial and without you constantly behind me, ready to support me, I would have never been able not to fall. I knew you would have always been there, and this allowed me not to be afraid. When I come back I will need you in the same way".  
"If that's what you think, then I’ll never go anywhere", he mutters. His voice is deep, hoarse and passionate and you cannot restrain yourself: you get up from the table, walk around it until you get in front of him and hug him. He immediately hugs you back, placing his hands on your hips and holding you fondly. That’s probably just the clumsy and awkward hug of a fourteen-year-old girl to him, but to you it’s a wonderful moment, for sure the best in your life ever since when you moved in that region that you would have never thought you'd come to love that much. You deeply inhale his scent, stronger on his bare skin.   
When you reluctantly let him go, Kukui’s eyes are shining. "Promise me you'll come back", he murmurs. You nod. "I promise. This is my home".   
You hesitate for a moment, but, after all, he asked you a promise and you are entitled to ask him one in exchange. "Could… Could you promise me you won’t forget me?"  
He looks amused. "How could I forget anything about you? You are so special and wonderful. The first Alola champion. The one who has received the approval of all Tapus and who completed the tour of the islands without ever being defeated. Do you think there is another in the world with so many titles? You’ll be unforgettable, for me as for anyone else".  
"I don’t care about my titles, nor about anyone else. I just want you to remember me, and not for what I got, but for who I am".  
He nods. "I get it. So it will be. I will not forget you". He pauses briefly, then looks at you heartbroken. "Is this really necessary? You’ll meet someone, your feelings will change…"  
"Professor, in recent months I have met many people and none was able to get me to change my mind. I'm afraid not seeing you for a while is the only way".  
"But will you be able to survive all alone?"  
"I will not be alone”, you remind him. "There will be Decidueye with me. Who can protect me better than him?”  
He nods and finally it seems there is nothing left to say. You alternate your gaze between Kukui and the door, conscious of having to go but wanting to stop for a bit more. He hugs you once again and leaves you a kiss on the forehead. After a few minutes during which you let yourself being pampered like a child, you take a step back. "Then I'll go", you mutter. "I leave you the league. Please, defend my title".  
"What an honor", he whispers. You don’t know the reason why you’re both talking in a low voice, but raising the tone would probably ruin the atmosphere. "I'll give you back the title, I promise. No one will steal it". You nod.   
Without looking back, you leave the house. Kukui chases you at the door. "I'll come to see you when you leave!" He says.   
You look at him one last time, before answering.  "Don’t. If you do, I won’t be able to leave".

 


	2. Coming back

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You haven’t even been home, your mom doesn’t even know that you're back, you're in front of his lab with your whole luggage and you don’t have the faintest idea what to do now. What if he doesn’t recognize you? What if he reacts angrily at your presence? What if you discover that he doesn’t care anymore about you, that he has never thought about you even for a moment, that he has never missed you in these five years?

You hesitate in front of the door you once used to know and fear, your raised fist stuck in midair.  
You wonder how seeing him again will make you feel. Five years have passed since the last time you two met, when you still loved him and his mere proximity made you happy and sad at the same time. You said you would have been away only a couple of years, but the time flew and it always seemed too soon to come back. You visited the whole region of Kalos and you won the league, you’ve reached the top only to discover that your only desire was to show him how brave and powerful you had become. You studied as a healer at a Pokemon Center for a couple of years, and then you explored the most diverse regions. It took you a lot of time, but in the end, you thought you did it, you realized to be matured and ready to face your duties as the first Alola champion. You were sure that you didn’t feel anything more towards him, but now that you're about to see him your heart keep pounding in your chest. You haven’t even been home, your mom doesn’t even know that you're back, you're in front of his lab with your whole luggage and you don’t have the faintest idea what to do now. What if he doesn’t recognize you? What if he reacts angrily at your presence? What if you discover that he doesn’t care anymore about you, that he has never thought about you even for a moment, that he has never missed you in these five years?  
You try to repeat yourself that you moved on, that you wouldn’t be bothered by it, but basically, you're already starting doubting yourself. Maybe it's just the excitement for the upcoming meeting, but your heart – pounding faster and faster – suggests you that your travel was useless and that you’re totally not over him. You're almost tempted to head back, get on the ship, and run away for another five, long years.  
Fortunately, providence spares you the embarrassment. Someone opens the door and you take a step back, scared, stumbling and falling on the sand. You try to get up, waiting for a little help from whoever surprised you – in vain, as you have to laboriously get up on your own. You look at the door, quite annoyed, and then you see him. Motionless, his eyes opened wide, the professor looks the same as always – perhaps his hair is a bit longer, but you’re not sure, because he has tied it in that funny ponytail that you’ve always liked. You wipe the sand off your pants and smile, ignoring the beat of your heart and his wonderful and astonished gaze. “Were you going out, professor? I just wanted to say hello”.  
He doesn’t answer, just keeps looking at you. “You’re back”. He keeps standing in the doorway, apparently unable to move, but it doesn’t last long: as soon as you finish cleaning up he runs toward you and hugs you tightly. You both fall on the sand but his arms behind your back, this time, soften the blow – you're afraid that he’s hurt himself, but he does not seem to notice as he starts laughing out loud. "You're back!" He says again. You give him a few pats on the back, crushed under his weight which compresses your chest. "Yeah, I'm back", you answer with effort. "You look good".  
"You too", he mumbles, rolling onto his side and ending up lying next to you on the sand. “Oh, I can’t get over on how you’ve grown! Well it’s normal, after all this time, but still... You know”. He pauses to take another look and then reproves you. “Weren’t you supposed to stay away just a couple of years? Where have you been lately, what have you done? Why did you come back now? How was your adventure? Did you get what you wanted? "  
"One question at a time!" You laugh, sitting on the sand. You look at him with affection: time has not diminished his charm and charisma. You had never realized you had missed him so much. "There is so much to talk about. We could meet at another time, if you prefer. You were going out".  
"I can wait," he replies without hesitation. "I was going to the lawyer, but there’s no need to hurry".  
"Have you been sued for obscene behavior? I’ve always said that you should wear more clothes ", you tease him. He looks at you, serious and vaguely dejected. "Nope… Professor Burnet and I have come to an end", he says with a shrug. "I'm concluding the divorce proceedings".  
You blush and cover your mouth with your hands. "Oh ... I'm so sorry, Professor, I had no idea. I’m sorry..."  
"Do not worry," he reassures you waving a hand in the air. He stands up and gives you a hand to help you do the same. "Come in, cousin."   
You grab his hand and in a few seconds you're inside the house that you had missed so much. You look at the huge aquarium that stands in the middle of the living room and, surprised, you notice five happy Ludvisc swimming in it. "There are two more than before", you say counting a second time.   
“Yeah, new arrivals”, answers Kukui, his voice coming from outside the door. You turn to him and notice that he’s pledged to take your bags inside the house. Feeling as if under observation, he turns to you and smiles affectionately. "We can’t leave them there, cousin, the former team Skull steals anything. Since when Guzma left them, they no longer have any kind of organization, so they just go around stealing Pokemons and any kind of stuff they find". You nod and help him dragging your luggage before sitting wearily on a chair.  
You take a look around the house. Apart from the two more Ludvisc, everything is the same as you remembered: the sofa, the table, the whole decor has not changed at all. You feel like you never left – even his Rockruff is idly dozing in the same position he was the last time you saw him.  
You wait for Kukui to sit in front of you as he used to when you had to talk about something, but this time he surprises you placing his chair next to yours, and sitting by your side before hugging you without hesitation. You rest your head upon his shoulder, glad to be hugged by a friend after your long and lonely journey. "I missed you a lot”, you confess, sincere and bold. You feel the hug getting stronger. "Me too… Everyone here missed you", he answers. "For a whole year, a bunch of people asking for your news queued everyday in front of your mom’s house. Well, it was almost in vain, of course”, he adds as he frees you from the hug and looks at you in disapproval. You blush; you start regretting having cut ties with all in Alola. You know that your friends must have been worried about not getting a single information in five years, but you didn’t feel like keeping in touch at all. You knew you were receiving tons of emails, but they were delivered to Kalos’ own Professor – since you did not tell anyone your address – and you never bothered to answer nor, actually, to read them.  
"I guess you didn’t read the emails that everyone sent you", he says, as if he had followed the course of your thoughts. You shake your head, feeling vaguely guilty.   
"Not even mine?" He asks anxiously, looking a bit embarrassed. You shake your head again and he breathes a sigh of relief. "Oh, that’s great. I hope you cancelled them, I had a lot of mixed and confused feelings as I was writing them. Some might even be offensive”.  
You prefer not telling him that you have not deleted anything and, indeed, Professor Sycamore always sent them all to you; you can’t help but decide to read Kukui’s emails as soon as you go home, just to have some fun with his ‘mixed and confused feelings’.  
"Have you ever queued in front of mom’s place to hear from me?" You ask nonchalantly, changing the subject. You try to pretend you don’t really care, but you perfectly know it’s not true and the disappointment you feel when he denies to have ever done that is a clear clue.   
"Nah", he says indeed. "I really didn’t need that". That hurts you, but he doesn’t notice and keeps talking. "I was the only one who actually had news about you. In fact, after a year Hau found my source and revealed it to everyone, so the queue moved in front of my house”.   
You look at him a bit puzzled and he chuckles. "Professor Sycamore and I are very good friends. During these years I video-chatted with him almost every day and he kept me informed about you... He told me how you were doing, what were you doing… If you were showing desire to come home". He shots you an apologetic smile and you wonder what he exactly knows about your life away from him. In the three and a half years you've been in Kalos before leaving to visit other regions, you often visited Professor Sycamore – he’s a young gentleman, truly kind and sympathetic, and you had easily become friends. He had become a confidant to you, and, during a particularly sad night you spent studying at his lab, you even revealed him – after little more than a year of acquaintance – the real reason for your departure. You even confessed him that you weren’t sure at all you could get over your feelings for Kukui. Sycamore knew everything happened to you, everything you thought, and you’re a bit worried to know that Kukui has never ceased to hear from him.  
The Professor deeply looks at you, probably understanding your concerns. "He didn’t say much, actually, but it was better than nothing", he immediately specifies. "He told me the name of the hotel where you were staying and even sent me your email address, but I have never used it not to be unwelcome. He updated me on your progress and your health... I've also seen you once, you know? You were sick and Professor Sycamore had invited you to stay with him until you recovered. You were asleep on the couch while he was video-chatting with me. It was nice”, he chuckles tenderly.  
"You have never stopped looking after me even though I was away”, you whisper gratefully. You feel awkward now, as you know nothing about what happened to him, or others. You feel guilty for not having asked any of your friends some news about their health and their lives, you realize that you’ve thought only of yourself. "Can... Can you tell me something? About what happened here, to you and... The others? "  
"Sure", he says, standing up. "Would you like something to drink in the meanwhile? A hot chocolate? Sycamore has sent me a few envelopes of the prepackaged hot chocolate of Kalos, saying you’re crazy for it". You nod, vaguely wondering why Kukui is even informed about your favorite chocolate, if Sycamore told him only the bare essentials. Was it such a vital information? In the end, however, you do not care, you're just happy that the professor has been thinking about you during your absence. You know that despite all Kukui has probably always felt he was responsible for your leaving, so it’s quite obvious that he has tried to make sure you were okay – you’re so moved by it that you even forgive his obvious disregard for your privacy.  
You watch him as he moves around the kitchen, the coat fluttering here and there, occasionally revealing portions of bare skin that remind you of something. With an amused smile, you stand up and go rummaging in the rucksack you had on your shoulders: it just occurred to you that you have something you need to give Kukui. "What are you doing?" He asks you, averting his eyes from his work only for a moment. You keep scrabbling concentrated. "I have a gift for you”, you say when you finally find the package. It's all wrinkled, but it doesn’t contain anything fragile; you just flatten it a bit with your hands and then leave it on the table, waiting for Kukui to finish. When he arrives with two steaming cups, he sits in front of you, place the cups on the table and then, as happy as a child, he grabs the package. "Why, you didn’t have to!" He politely states, but then eagerly opens it.  
You wish you had in your hands your Rotom Pokedex to take a photo of the Professor – Kukui’s face is something awesome. Stunned, blushing, he holds in his hands your gift and looks something between puzzled and amused. "Of all the Kalos souvenirs you could have chosen... Why a t-shirt?"  
"Don’t know, I just thought that after five years you had acquired a little common sense and had begun to wear them", you tease him. You open your mouth in wonder at what he does after: Kukui nonchalantly takes off his lab coat and wears the black shirt. "Thanks!" He chuckles. "How does it fit?" He asks standing up and pirouetting.  
"You’re wonderful, as always. But I preferred you before”. You reply without thinking and, as soon as you realize what you said, you blush, hoping that he didn’t notice your vague appreciation for his body. He laughs, his eyes closed and his hands on his belly, in that special way that you’ve always loved. "You should have thought of that before!" He replies wearing his coat over the shirt. "But cousin, that’s so suffocating! I’m sweating. How can you be able to wear a shirt all the time? " He adds.  
"Training and modesty", you answer absently, beginning to enjoy your hot chocolate. It's really good, one of the many things of the magnificent Kalos region that you miss, but Alola is your home and you're more than happy to be finally back.  
While the professor starts taking sips of his chocolate he begins to speak, making a summary of what has happened in recent years. You discover that your mother has found a work at MeleMele island’s clothing store and she’s entitled to an exceptional discount on merchandise, of which, of course, you will soon take advantage. Lillie is back and she got engaged with Hau; Kukui gives you their addresses and you decide to visit them as soon as possible. Gladion has tried three or four times to become the island champion, but after the last failure he has decided to move to Kanto and start from the beginning with the training. Silvally, being an almost unique Pokemon, has aroused great wonder and a lot of people want to battle him, which is the reason why Gladion is accepting a lot of challenges and he’s sure to become the strongest trainer in Alola after he comes back. "You know, he gives us his news almost everyday, not like someone else”, the professor chuckles. You answer with a wicked tongue.  
He then tells you that Lillie’s mother is fine now and she’s showing high morals and a commendable behavior; sometimes she spends entire days in bed, but otherwise her health is great. She started desperately looking for Lillie and Gladion’s father, vanished into thin air; Guzma was sad, but he soon got over his feelings for her. "You would never recognize Guzma!" Kukui exclaims laughing out loud. "As I mentioned earlier, he has definitively left the Skull team and he now works with Nanu to keep order on Ula’Ula island. He’s changed a lot and we just can’t understand why! Perhaps he realized that none would have truly loved him in life if he had kept being an asshole”. You choke on your beverage because of the term he used, and he gives you a few pats on your back before continuing. “In any case, sometimes we see each other to have a coffee... I know he gave you trouble in the past, but I would be pleased if you agreed in meeting him once". He tells you other minor things and you carefully listen to everything, then he finally gets to the part you were most interested in: what happened to him. "About me... Well, I have devoted myself to work, starting to spend less and less time with Burnet. I’ve neglected her, and when she confronted me about it, I understood she was probably right. She was getting bored and said that I was ignoring her. In the end, she asked for divorce. But, you know... We got engaged when we were very young. We were just sixteen and we obviously weren’t meant to be soulmates. These kind of things just happen". He seems very serene while talking, even though deep in his eyes there is a sad light that you’ve seen only a few times before. "I'm so sorry, professor".  
"Just call me Kukui", he changes subject. He doesn’t want to give importance to his separation and you don’t know if he tries to hide the pain, or if he really doesn’t care – which you doubt. You’d love to help him, but you don’t know how nor if he needs you to. You probably are more confused than him at the moment – even in the most difficult days of your mad passion for him, you had never thought, nor hoped, that those two could have broken up. Their pairing was so famous in the Alola islands, it was as certain and undisputed as the existence of Tapus, unshakable and apparently eternal. The idea that everything ended makes you anxious and warms your heart at the same time – no matter how hard you try, you can’t help but think that from now on Kukui will feel alone and will need a bit of closeness. You've never been the kind of person who takes advantage of other’s unfavorable situations, but you know what it means to suffer for love, even though you were practically a child when you spent entire nights crying on your wounded feelings. You think you could help him if he needed, you want to help him, you want to erase that sad tinge from his gorgeous face.  
As if he read your mind, Kukui suddenly smiles, remembering something that amuses him a lot, judging by its vibrant look. "Three and a half years ago I was operated on, you know?" You look at him in shock and he chuckles. "Lycanroc hit me too hard while I was testing the strength of his new moves and he broke me three ribs. Now we are so powerful! You'll have to defeat us again if you want me to give you back the title of champion. "  
"Do you still hold it?" You ask, amused. “I thought someone would have stolen it in all this time. I suppose you’re not as weak as I thought…”  
He grins at your teasing. "Do not get a big head just because I let you win once, cousin”. Then he softens his smile. “Still, none stole it. After all, I promised you that I would have returned it".  
"This is nonsense", you point out. "None stole it because you promised to give it back, but before you return it you want me to defeat you".  
He shakes his head. "It would be nonsense only if I wasn’t sure that you’ll easily defeat me anyway. I just want to have a battle with you, to be honest. "  
"Fair enough. What about tomorrow in the morning? Nothing better than a Pokemon battle to wake up".  
"It would be perfect", he answers with smiling eyes. "What about you, what did you do in these last months?" He asked then, curiously. "Sycamore has not been able to give me your news ever since you stopped working at the Pokemon Center".  
You keep talking with him, feeling happy and relieved like you haven’t felt for ages. You tell him that you traveled a lot, visiting different regions, without stopping too much in any place, taking on part-time jobs and accepting some challenges here and there just to get the money with which you paid for food and basic accommodation. In front of you, the empty cups are waiting to be washed. The sun goes down before you know it and you are still there, talking amiably as if time had never passed.  
As soon as he notices the time, he invites you to dinner and you accept, but first you decide to make a quick call to your mom to tell her you're in Alola and you’ll be home for the night. While Kukui happily cooks you exchange a few words with her: she is happy and looking forward to see you and she involuntarily makes you feel even more guilty about the five years you passed without giving her your news.  
When Kukui softly asks you to set the table, you hang up the phone and comply. You spread the tablecloth and place the dishes, cutlery, and glasses before you sit patiently and wait for the professor to finish. You look at your work satisfied and a little embarrassed: only flowers and candles are missing to turn that welcome-home-meal into a romantic dinner, and you don’t like the way your heart aches at the thought. Meanwhile, Kukui keeps cooking for you, and you're looking forward to knowing what his magnificent hands are so ardently working on.  
You soon sense a wonderful smell and open your eyes wide. The smell that have reached you is the one of Pyrorice, an unjustly little known dish which was brought to your knowledge by professor Sycamore a few years ago. The first time you joined him for dinner, he personally cooked it – you were initially skeptical because of its bright red color, but then you simply fell in love with it. You remember telling Sycamore that, from then on, the only way to gain access to your heart would have been to go through your stomach with that delicacy. Your gaze, almost moved, is now shifting from Kukui to the dishes he is holding in his hands, from the magnificent color of that masterpiece to the wonderful smirk of your – hard to admit – still beloved professor.  
"Sycamore told me you love this dish", says Kukui indeed, placing it in front of you with a smile. "Since then, I make sure to always have the ingredients at home... You know, I wanted to be ready in case of a sudden come back", he explains. You tenderly smile and he smiles back, sitting in front of you and picking up his fork. You begin to eat, hungry and mesmerized by the amazing taste, but after the third bite you realize that Kukui has not begun yet, but he’s stopped with the fork in his hand and he’s staring at you thoughtfully. When you start to stare back at him, he shrugs and sighs deeply. "Listen, dearie... I have to ask", he mutters. "Did you get what you wanted?"  
You look at your fork in embarrassment. "I thought so. Not sure anymore though". Receiving no answer, you raise your eyes and see Kukui with a flushed face. He's obviously trying to suppress a smile that you can’t explain to yourself, and he quickly begins to eat, almost choking on the first mouthful of rice.  
You finish your dinner silently, you are too confused to talk and Kukui is still smiling. When it’s time to say goodbye, after agreeing on the time for the battle tomorrow, Kukui helps you putting your luggage on the Poké Ride Tauros, then he makes sure you’re steady on it and says goodbye with a wave of his hand. Tauros is wearily walking toward your house because of the additional weight – it’s not far at all and you'd rather go on foot, but Kukui insisted for you to use the Ride Pager.  
When the door closes behind the professor you are already several meters away, but his shout of joy reaches you from there. "Finally off! Damn shirt!"  
Chuckling amused, you untie the slingings and precede Tauros on foot, running in the grass up to your house. You quickly grab the Pokeball where your Decidueye is resting and you let him out, enjoying the joyful hug he gives you with his huge wings. "Did you hear everything? I think it went well, didn’t it?" You ask him apprehensively and he emits a gloomy hooting that is probably half way between a denial and a reproach. "I know, I know", you mutter stroking his feathered cloak. "Five years away, and it took me just an afternoon to ruin everything. But it is not my fault! He provoked me! That smile, all the attention for me... He was so kind, so gentle. And now I am an adult, aren’t I? I should be allowed to hope".  
Decidueye’s stern gaze suggests you that no, you are not allowed. You give him a playful punch on a wing and he throws against you a weak Spirit Shackle, cooing amused when you emerge from the smoke with tousled hair. You’d love to continue with that mock fight that often, in the darkest and loneliest moments of your trip, had colored your days with joy and fun, but now Tauros has reached you and you hasten to free him from the luggage and thank him affectionately.  
When you walk inside your home, exhausted, you leave everything you have in the entrance, and the faithful Mr.Mime is quick to bring them to your room with joyful verses of welcome. You look around and notice your mom asleep on the couch – you smile as you decide to let her rest, you’ll talk with her tomorrow.  
All you want to do now is to satisfy your curiosity, go upstairs and read all the emails that the professor sent you during your long absence.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoyed the second chapter!   
> I'm having a little help with the translation - or a big one, actually - so I wanted to thank my proof-reader.  
> If you ever read this, thank you so much, Valse.


	3. Letters from the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _I miss you cousin. May I call you to wish you happy birthday? I’d really like to hear your voice again. It has been three years and a half, after all. It shouldn’t be dangerous, is it?_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hope you enjoy the new chapter!

When he sent you all the emails you were receiving, Sycamore had pointed the sender in their subject, so you find it quite easy to isolate Kukui’s ones. They’re less than you thought – while your mother has written to you every week and Hau almost everyday, Kukui’s ones are only a dozen over the five years of separation.  
Curious, you open the first, dated the day of your arrival in Kalos.

 

_You asked me not to come to greet you at the harbor, so I’m saying goodbye by mail. I hope I’m allowed to. See you soon.  
Kukui_

 

You frown noticing how short and sharp was this first mail – that’s not like him at all, as he’s always ready to talk to exhaustion even when there is no one who listens. You wonder what his feelings were while he was writing – was he angry? Disappointed? Hurt? Still regretting not having left in your place? The tone is rather angry and offended, but it is likely that he just had to hurry.  
You open the second one, and you smile as you spot the much larger amount of words that is written. This email is much more suitable for him, and it’s dated only a few days after the first.

 

 _Hey cousin! I’m so sorry for my last email, I was a bit upset, but I realized I shouldn’t be! You’ve just left for this new, great adventure, and it surely isn’t the right time to be angry with you, I should instead support you blindly._  
_Not that I was mad at you, of course. I just felt bad about your leaving, you know... I wanted to come and say hello when the ship left, just like all the others. I wonder what they have thought when they didn’t see me there. They probably believe that I am a bad person now, an opportunist, who doesn’t really care about you and the other young people I meet every year for the Ritual._  
_In the end, however, it’s not about how I feel, is it, cousin? It’s about how you feel! The important thing is that you’re happy with the decision you’ve taken! If you’ve fully thought about it then it must be the right choice, and who am I to think otherwise. I have no right to complain about a decision you've made for your own good, even if, of course, I could hazard a guess and say that maybe you could have also thought about me? And at least allow me to come and share with you that last handshake – last for a long time, as I suppose. Well it doesn’t matter, I have certainly no right to reprove you. I’d have a request anyway – could you give me your email address? Just to avoid clogging up Sycamore’s mailbox._  
_Kukui_  

 

You quickly open the third email, dated the day after the previous one, trying not to dwell too much on those hard and unpleasant words that have hurt you even after many years since they’ve been written.  


  
_I'm terribly sorry, really, really sorry. I thought I was calmer yesterday when I wrote that email, but apparently, I was angrier than I thought. Now I am perfectly calm and I ask you to forgive me._  
_I must confess that yesterday afternoon I called Professor Sycamore to make sure you were doing good and establishing yourself. I'm glad to know that you are well and that you are liking the hotel there in Lumiose City. I hope you won’t feel alone. If you do you can always write me, or call me. I’m here for you at any moment and you have my number, my address and everything that can be useful to contact me._  
_About what I wrote to you yesterday, don’t worry: I understand you don’t want to give me your email address, it is normal. You've gone away from me and certainly I’m not making it easy for you, am I? Gosh, I feel so stupid. I won’t keep my writing so much insistent, I swear._  
_Hope you’ll live a good experience. I’ll be waiting for you at home._  
_Kukui_  
 

  
Now focused on reading, you open all the following emails – most of them are spaced several months apart from each other.  
 

  
_On this special day, the thoughts of the entire region are for you. Happy birthday!_  
Kukui  
   


_A year has passed since you left. We miss you a lot. Come back soon._  
_Kukui_  


  
_I am in hospital because Lycanroc broke me three ribs. You should see how I’m spoiled! I never have a free second, people just keep visiting me and bringing me gifts. I feel so loved. You're the only one missing!_  
_Kukui_  
  


_It's amazing, but you've already turned sixteen and yet it seems like you only left yesterday. Happy birthday! Come back soon._  
_Kukui_

  
  
_Can you answer me? Only once, I’m begging you please. Does it make sense to you to cut ties with everyone here? Your mom is really worried about you, and I am too. It's been almost two years and you have never once felt the need to give us a sign of life. I’ve come to know that you have been sick lately and Sycamore has been taking care of you. I am glad to know that you have someone who cares about you even there._  
_Kukui_  
_P.S. Good luck with your internship at the Pokemon Center._

  
  
_Two years have passed. You said you'd come back. Looking forward to it._  
_Kukui_

  
  
_Happy seventeenth birthday! I keep writing, but I’m starting to get it’s useless, isn’t it?_  
_Kukui_

  
_Happy eighteenth birthday. I miss you cousin. May I call you to wish you happy birthday? I’d really like to hear your voice again. It has been three years and a half, after all. It shouldn’t be dangerous, is it?_  
_Kukui_  
  
  


_Sycamore told me you left to visit other regions. I thought you would have come back, after Kalos. Are you planning to win the league somewhere else now? Are you going to stay three and a half years in each region? To be back in twenty years? That’s ridiculous. Are you kidding me? We stay here, patiently waiting, looking forward for you to come back, and you go here and there minding your own business, having fun and travelling without hesitation? I’m not asking for much, but at least warn and have some respect for someone who is waiting for you without even knowing if you will ever be back! Hell, I feel like hating you, do you expect that we will stay here loving you and waiting for you forever? People forget quickly, and given how you are behaving I’m not so sure you deserve to be remembered anymore._  
_Kukui_

  
  
Shocked, you shut your email box with tears in your eyes. The latest email, dated only a few hours after the previous one, contrasts so much with the behavior he had when he saw you... He hugged you, updated you on everything, he cooked for you, it was like he had never stopped caring about you in all the five years of separation. But now you find out that he was hurt to the point that he had threatened to break the one promise he had made you, the only thing you wanted from him. Did he joke with you all the entire afternoon? Does he want to humiliate you in the fight tomorrow and hurt you publicly? It doesn’t sound like him – but still…  
You rest your head in your hands and sink your fingers through your hair. You're confused and you feel alone, even now that you're back and most of your friends are within one kilometer around you. You feel alone because you want to confide in someone, you want a different opinion from yours, you want someone who can give you any consolation about the confusion between your feelings and your perceptions, but even if your friends were awake no one would know the great uproar you feel inside – on top of that, you start considering the fact that they might be as mad at you as Kukui was in that email, which would mean they probably won’t have any interest in helping you.  
There’s only one thing left to do: you quickly grab your computer and send a video-chat request to Sycamore, hoping for him to answer quickly – you don’t think you can wait until tomorrow morning.  
You have to call him three times, but he finally answers. An overly tired face appears on your screen, framed by long unkempt hair. He looks like he was sleeping, which is quite unusual to him – he’s a true workaholic and you don’t remember seeing him asleep for more than two hours in a row. He doesn’t seem surprised by your call, but actually, it's not the first time you call him. He was not a danger to you, so you have more or less kept in contact even during your tour of the other regions.  
"I'm calling from Alola", you tell him before he can even open his mouth. You smile to him in both a serene and worried way, but Sycamore does not seem awake enough to decode the nuances of your mood and he replies wryly. "Funny, the last time I checked it the time zone was different. Do you know what time it is?"  
You quickly take a glance to the clock in the lower corner of the screen: it’s one in the morning, which means that in Kalos it’s four in the morning.  
"I'm sorry", you apologize. "It was urgent".  
"I guess you've seen Kukui, then", he says, vigorously rubbing his eyes to keep himself awake – he must have realized that you’re not going to cut short. "We talked about this, I was sure you would have fallen in love again as soon as you saw him. Escaping from your feelings is not the proper way to deal with them..."  
"It’s not just that", you hush him. You've already heard that speech a thousand times and you already know what Sycamore thinks – you have no need to hear him saying again how immature and coward you have been. "Fine, you were right, but it's not just that".  
"What is it then, _cherie_?" He asks with a sigh. You smile at his gallicism, a detail that has always touched you, an elegant attempt of the professor to remain faithful to his birthplace. You are almost tempted to leave him alone and let him go back to sleep – and he would probably appreciate it – but you also know how badly you need his sympathy and wisdom right now.  
"It’s about Kukui’s emails. Those emails that you sent to me and I didn’t read. Well... I’ve read them. "  
"And why did you do it?"  
You carefully think about it, but the real answer is one and it makes you blush. "Well, because Kukui asked me not to”.  
Sycamore looks puzzled, but he doesn’t comment the absurdity of the thing. "So, what has upset you enough to make you lose track of time?"  
"You still have them in your mailbox, haven’t you? Can you read the last one you sent me, please? "  
Sycamore patiently grab the mouse and focus on his computer screen. It takes him a few minutes, but when he finishes reading he’s fully awake and thoughtfully scratches his slightly unkempt beard with a finger. " _Mon Dieu_... Was he unkind to you today?" He asks frowning.  
You shake your head. "No... No, not at all. Indeed, he has treated me very well. He wore the shirt that I gave him, he challenged me to a Pokemon battle which we have set for tomorrow, he even cooked me dinner... A wonderful Pyrorice". You can’t continue to list all the attention that Kukui has had for you today because Sycamore stops you, running a hand through his hair. "Well if that’s so, _ma chère_ , you have nothing to worry about. He probably wrote that email in a moment of rage... Or weakness. After all, I guess you know he was having several problems with Burnet in that period, and she has asked for divorce not long after... I’m sure he didn’t mean what he wrote".  
You sigh with little conviction. "I know, but... You see, he had already written to me angry emails, but soon after he always wrote other ones to apologize. What worries me is… That email, it was the last one that he sent me, and after that he didn’t write anything for a year and a half – not even his usual birthday greetings – and I just can’t explain his behavior today in relation to what he wrote me, I can’t understand anything".  
Sycamore looks at you as if he felt guilty, then he scans the computer quickly turning the mouse wheel. "Actually, _cherie_ , it wasn’t the last email that he wrote you", he says, pointing at something that you can’t see on his screen. "A few days after you left, he sent another one, but he immediately called me to ask me not to send it to you. He said he had made a mistake and that he would have personally written to you. I guess he did not. "  
You shake your head. "What did he say in that email? Can you send it to me?"  
" _Non_ ", he replies with a sigh. "He asked me not to, and I will not. But,”, he adds as he sees your disappointed look, "I can tell you something interesting, if you promise me you’ll let me go back to sleep immediately after”.  
You nod and he sighs deeply. "I don’t know if you know this, you probably do or you at least guessed it, but since you came here, Kukui has called me almost every day. Either phone calls or video-chat, it didn’t really matter. He’s a good friend of mine and even before your leaving he used to call me a couple of times a month and he would ask me about my life, but when you were here, well, talking to him was an incessant daily appointment. He asked me to tell him everything in detail, from your adventures to what you had eaten for lunch. He called me even during the weeks you didn’t spend here in Lumiose City because you were busy training and challenging a gym. I had nothing to tell him during those days, and so he was the one speaking, he confided in me, he said that he was missing you so much and that everyone was missing you, but I think that he was mostly speaking for himself. In this way, when you were here he was pretty close to you without you knowing, and following you, he saw you growing each day through my words. He knows everything you’ve done, thought, felt – or at least everything you told me. For three and a half years it was as if you had never seriously left, and he was fine... More or less. When you turned eighteen and you left Kalos... I think he felt as if you were really leaving for the first time, which means horribly". He sighs again and you wait for him to resume talking. "I could feel it in his words. When everything started he mostly was worried and full of sense of guiltiness, he knew that you had left because of him and he wanted to be sure he had not caused your unhappiness as well as your leaving. He was interested in your health and your mood. But then you’ve grown and so did his interest in you. He started to become interested in your ideas, your feelings, your thoughts, and I didn’t always know how to answer his urgent questions. The day he sent you that email… You had just left. It was the day after your birthday. I remember it for sure because he had called me a few hours before, during the night. I think he was drunk, but I'm not sure. He was crying though, he told me that he had had a fight with Burnet. He asked me if he could’ve talked to you the day after, he said he needed to talk to you. But you weren’t here anymore and that hurt him. Which means, please, don’t give too much importance to what it’s written in the email, the important thing is that now the both of you are well and happy, as far as possible".  
You intently look at Sycamore’s face on your screen and he waves a hand to catch your attention. "Are you still there? Have you crashed? "  
"No", you softly answer. "No, I'm fine".  
" _Très bien_ ", he says. "What worries me the most, to be honest, it's your dinner today... You see, the night after I cooked you Pyrorice the first time, Kukui called me and I jokingly told him that if he had ever needed to make you fall in love with him again, he should have cooked it to you". You suddenly blush as you begin to seriously consider the idea that Kukui has flirted with you for the entire afternoon. Your friend on the other side of the screen takes little to crush all your hopes. "I don’t know why he did it, and I can’t rule out the idea that he may be sincerely convinced that he is in love with you, you know. But, please, be the mature one and don’t forget that he truly loved Burnet and this situation is probably dejecting him more than it appears. Being away from you has confused and demoralized him to the point to get him to divorce, but it’s absolutely important that you understand that your return can have two really different consequences. He may realize he truly is in love with you – in which case you will both live happily ever after – or he may realize that he didn’t have any reason to fuck up his marriage. That would mentally destroy him but he would try to hide it and he would end up hurting you too…"  
"Wait", you stop him. You're sure that his monologue about the feelings of his friend could go on for hours, but you need to focus on one point that worries and excites you at the same time. "Are you implying that whatever happens, he... Kukui has... ‘fucked up’ his marriage because of me?"  
Sycamore stares at you a bit dazed, then shakes his head. "No, _ma petite_. I didn’t say that”.  
"Yes you did", you mutter.  
"No, really, I have no idea what you're talking about."  
"Augustine!" His face turns annoyed when you call him by his first name. He has never liked it and every time you call him like that he reproves you, even though you have repeatedly said that you use it just because you think that it’s a magnificent name. This time, however, the name that you have always pronounced with affection and sweetness sounds threatening and angry and he quickly gives up.  
"I may – or may not – have read his last email, after he asked me to cancel it. Well, two years have passed and I could not remember exactly its content... _Cherie_ , don’t look at me like that, curiosity is human".  
"Fine, whatever. I want to read it myself", you grumble and shake a finger towards the webcam on the top of your computer. He raises his hands in surrender gesture. "I am sending it. But don’t get your hopes too high. What I said before is still true, and if I may be bold enough I have every reason to doubt that his feelings towards you are sincere. He has always loved Burnet, he has always given everything he had for her, and whatever thought has distracted him from her, it has probably confused him to the point he magnified and misunderstood it... He’s nine years older than you but to be honest he’s rather naive, if you know what I mean..."  
"Hush", you mutter as you nervously open the email. Sycamore shuts up and you start reading as he stares at you quiet and worried.

  
  
_Hey there, little one._  
_Yes, I know you’ve grown up since the last time we saw, but I still imagine you as short and sweet as you were three years ago._  
_All the words in the world wouldn’t be enough to tell you how sorry I am for what I wrote to you yesterday. I was mean... It's a bad moment in my life and I was hoping to see you again. When Sycamore told me you had left... It was a hard blow. I’m really sorry, I wrote horrible things. No one could ever forget you, especially not me, especially not now that my life is falling apart and that the only thing I want is to see you again. And I don’t mean I want to see you by chance, in a corner of Sycamore’s webcam while he closes his computer not to make you notice who he’s talking to, I would like to see your eyes fixed in mine, I would like to hear you pronounce words for me. I want to talk to you, I want to tell you that you’ve grown up, to tell you that… I don’t know, to tell you that now that you've grown I can finally love you? I'm confused, I keep arguing with everyone, mistreating Burnet and I know why, because you had to stay away for two years and now that they’re almost four I’m nervous and tired of waiting for my chance to take my happiness. And Burnet is sad and seeks for my attention, but I can no longer think of her as I used to and I'm afraid of the consequences. I need clarity. Please, please read this email, and come back home. No matter if you have not forgotten me, we will find another solution. Please, I beg you. I am exhausted. Every place I go... I feel like everyone is staring at me and hating me because I'm the only one who could have done something to make you stay, but they don’t know it, it's not them, it's my damn conscience that the more you grow the more it metaphorically kicks me because I have let you go while I should’ve just loved you to make you stay! And I don’t know when it happened, as Professor Sycamore was talking with me about you, I began to want to love the young woman he was describing and whose strength and braveness I have admired since when she was years younger. So, please, come back home._  
_Kukui_  


  
You finish reading and angrily throw a punch on your desk. Sycamore patiently keeps staring, waiting for you to talk.  
"You were right", you mumble sadly.  
"About what?" He asks.  
You slowly point the screen with your finger. "This... This isn’t the email of a man who is in love. This is the email of a man who suffers and feels guilty. Yes, perhaps in recent years he has thought about me more than I have even hoped for, just... Just for the wrong reasons".  
He claps his hands ironically, abruptly rising to his feet. " _Merveilleux_! You got it! Now, can I go back to sleep?"  
You sigh and nod, flaunting a forced smile. Sycamore stares at you for a moment, then surrender. "Okay, _cherie,_ listen. I know you don’t want to be left alone, and if you called me to look for comfort you truly must have reached the bottom, but do you understand that I am in another region and, given the fact that I can’t give you the comfort you are looking for, it would be appropriate if we both rested a little? We can talk tomorrow, if it makes you feel better I’m here for you, but wait at least until the sun rises!"  
You don’t answer but keep staring at the screen for a few moments, until he finally gives up approaching the webcam once again. "I get it. Are you going to talk or should I take a book to read while waiting for your reaction?”  
You have played the part of the alone and abandoned girl to make him stay – and you aren’t even feeling guilty – but actually you don’t know what to tell him. Talking to him has demoralized you more than it has comforted you, although you now have answers that you didn’t have before. But the sadness is much greater than the relief – you had wonderful moments hoping that Kukui had been in love with you for all this time, and it’s hard to give up your illusion. You hold the edge of the table until it hurts, angry at yourself for keeping such a futile and painful hope.  
"Hey", Sycamore whispers, seeing a sadness in your eyes that words can’t express – the sadness of those who have seen their almost forsaken dream coming true only to cause more pain when it shatters. "Listen, _cherie_ , it’s not possible to fall in love with someone you don’t see nor hear for five years”. You try to object, but he stops you. “You were already in love with him, that’s a different matter. But, you know, it is possible that he has thought about you all the time, wondering how you were, imagining, investigating, stopping living his real life while chasing the slightest trace that you left behind, just to know that everything was okay and that there was no reason to feel guilty. Kukui has never stopped believing that he should have left in your place and that has probably upset him. He hasn’t thought about Burnet anymore and she probably thought everything had ended…"  
“If you’ve stayed to throw more guiltiness on me, you may as well go to sleep, Sycamore", you sadly grumble. He seriously looks at you for a moment, then he resumes as if nothing happened. "What I'm saying is that it doesn’t matter if it's all over because Kukui was too busy feeling guilty or if it was simply fate, what matters is that if it’s really over between them – please, notice I’m saying _if –_ then there is hope for you. It’s undeniable that he cares about you, he loves you, and if he now believes to be in love with you, then it doesn’t mean that he really isn’t or at least that he won’t be in the future". He frowns thinking of his last words. "Wait, I'm lost. Let me try again. What I mean is that..."  
"What you mean is that I have to figure out if he and Burnet are still in love before doing anything", you summarize for him. His speech was a bit confusing, but deep down you know it was fondamentally true. He nods, sighing exhausted, and you smile at him tenderly.   
“What a precious friend”, you whisper. “You lost sleep to give me hope”.  
“The slightest”, he points out. “Don’t forget it, _cherie_ – the slightest hope. I still find it quite unlikely”.  
You nod. "I’ll let you go. Goodnight, Augustine".  
For once, it doesn’t react in any way when you call him like that; after all, if it means that he can go to sleep without further discussion, even that hated name is welcome.  
_"Bonne nuit et doux rêves, ma chère”._


	4. A beautiful mistake

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> You’d love to run to him, but you know that tens of eyes are fixed on you and you’re afraid to mess things up in front of everyone.  
> “Welcome back, Champion”, Kukui says in a hoarse voice.

After the chat with Sycamore, you go almost straight to bed. The slightest hope his words gave you makes you sleep peacefully and you happily smile resting your head on your pillow until your eyes close. A wonderful and loving Kukui is all you can dream tonight, and when you wake up in the morning you don’t know whether to be more worried or happy about it. It’s easy to realize that your travel has been totally useless for what concerns its principal purpose. You don’t feel like saying it was completely fruitless though – after all you’ve learned many things about Pokemon care, you’ve become stronger and wiser and you’ve made new friends, especially Pokemon.  
Smiling at the thought, you reach for your belt lying on the nightstand and grab it to unhook your three Pokeballs. "Decidueye, Greninja, Infernape, come out!" You say throwing them in the air. The trio appears with euphoric verses and you greet all of them with a smile. "If you are patient, in a moment I’ll get up and we can have breakfast”, you softly say stroking Greninja’s head. Jealous of your attention, Infernape shoves his companion with a shoulder to take his place. The two of them start to brawl, while Decidueye reaches you on the bed and joins you in looking at them with an amused face.  
Infernape was the last Pokemon to join your team – you’ve found him a year ago, when he was just a small Monferno abandoned by his trainer. During your travels, you were shocked noticing how many young trainers consider Pokemon as if they were toys, or dolls supposed to be thrown away when they tire of them. You have tried to save as many Pokemon as possible, but often their traumatic experience had brought them to distrust any human being. Monferno was luckily different, he immediately trusted you with confidence, as if he desperately needed someone at his side. You have welcome him in your team and you have trained him since then, and in a few months he evolved in his final form.  
Greninja, instead, has been with you for five years now and you’ve known him since when he was a small Froakie. He was a gift from Sycamore who wanted to make you feel welcome in Kalos – indeed, his laboratory is full of the so-called starters of Kalos and Kanto, as he obviously is the one in charge of giving the young trainers of Kalos their first Pokemon. When he gave you that Froakie, you pointed out that you weren’t a beginner, you didn’t need it, but he didn’t listen to you and, after all, you were already fond of that little frog.  
Those two – and your loyal mate Decidueye – are the only Pokemon you brought with you in Alola, while you have preferred to entrust all the others to the care of Sycamore, as he has, in his laboratory, a magnificent ecosystem built specifically to meet the needs of all the different types of Pokemon. You sigh as you remember that you have to ask the professor to send you three more Pokemon to face the battle that awaits you this morning. You just have to decide who you will need.  
You sadly look at your Pokedex. You wish you had your Rotom with you – he would certainly recommend you which Pokemon you should use to have a well-balanced and powerful team. Unfortunately, he’s in the laboratory of Sycamore too, since when, a year and a half ago, the professor borrowed him in the urge of studying your particular Pokedex in every last detail. In fact, after trying to force a Rotom to enter his own Pokedex, he had realized that a common one wasn’t enough to maximize his potential and that he needed one specifically designed to host the Pokemon. Stubborn as he is, he refused to ask Kukui the project of the Pokedex of Alola and he preferred to study it personally, depriving you of a valuable tool and replacing it with his National Pokedex – professional, always updated, quick and perfectly functioning, but still not Rotom.  
You miss so much that little chatty dude and you're afraid that he’s not getting along well with Sycamore – as your Pokemon can be very mischievous and self-centered sometimes – but you just weren’t able to say no when the professor looked at you with watery gray eyes, literally begging.  
Chuckling at the memory, you active the communication function of the Pokedex and write to Sycamore.  
_When can I get my Rotom-dex back? It would be so useful right now. I need to decide which Pokemon to use in the battle today._  
It takes him only a little to answer you.  
_Bonjour to you, ma chére! It takes so long only because your Rotom isn’t cooperative at all, every time I try to disassemble your Pokedex, he strongly opposes._  
You smile, amused.  
_Did you let him go out of the Pokedex, before approaching him with a screwdriver?_  
You type fast, and his only answer is a puzzled emoticon. You sigh when you realize that in a year and a half Sycamore has not even considered the possibility of removing the poor Rotom from the Pokedex before dismantling it.  
_And you'd be a Pokemon professor... Whatever. Could you kindly ask him which Pokemon he recommends me to use?_  
While you wait for him to answer, Infernape – who has managed to land Greninja despite the inferiority of type – lands with a jump on your bed and starts looking threateningly at Decidueye. The huge owl, who actually is a pretty pacifist one despite his strength being much greater than others, goes squatting next to Greninja on the floor, while Infernape sits down next to you, glad to have won the place of honor. "You are impossible”, you giggle, watching that funny trio.  
In that moment, you feel a slight knock on the door. Smiling, you put the Pokedex away. "Come in!" You shout, and Mr. Mime immediately opens the door and takes a step aside, letting your mother in. She’s holding in her arms a huge tray full of your favorite breakfast food – pancakes and a coconut and banana smoothie! There are also some Pokemon Pancakes, not enough to satisfy your three hungry friends though. Your mom notices it as she closes the door behind her back and takes a glance around your overcrowded room. "I guess I’ll have to take more Pokemon Pancakes!" She observes, and you giggle, getting up to help her put the whole thing on your desk. "No need to worry, mom. They’ll share these, then I’ll buy them something else", you say, and she thanks you with a grateful smile.  
“You have grown so much…” She whispers, her eyes full of tears. You're afraid that she’s going to cry – you don’t want her to cry, you’re too emotional when she does and you would end up bursting into tears together with her. Without thinking twice, you hug her tightly not to see her feelings – it’s too easy to read them on her face. She hugs you back, talking in your ear. “You were such a small girl when you left, and look at you now. You’re a woman”.  
"Thanks, Mom”, you sigh releasing her from the hug, and she tenderly smiles. "What for, honey?"  
"Well… For letting me live my life. I was only fourteen when I left, but you didn’t try to stop me", you explain. "I guess you must have been very worried".  
"No, not worried. I missed you a lot though" she replies while stroking your hair. "But, you see... I knew you were doing just fine and you were feeling well, and it was enough for me. You needed to get away, I understand that”.  
"How did you know I was doing fine?” You doubtfully ask – even though deep inside you already knew the answer.  
"Professor Kukui told me! He was in touch with…"  
"Sycamore", you puff, stopping her. Actually, it was pretty obvious that Kukui would have reassured your mom about your well-being. "I haven’t noticed it for five years, but since I came back you all keep saying that. And I thought I had become untraceable", you mumble. She laughs, in her gentle and affectionate way you like so much. "We were lucky to find such a kind and caring professor here in Alola”, she points out.  
"It’s true", you softly confirm. "I missed him so much”.  
“I guess you missed him more than you want to admit", she whispers with a clever look, and when you open your eyes wide surprised by her intuition she lovingly smiles. "Honey, a mother is always aware of certain stuff". You blush and she laughs, covering her mouth with a hand. "Did you move on, at least? Have you met someone special in Kalos?"  
"No, none”, you reply. "But I moved on anyway, it was just a childish crush", you add right away, aware of your lie but incapable of admitting the truth in front of her. Her smile grows larger. "Very well! You can stay in Alola then – or are you going to leave again?”  
"No", you reassure her, "I’m not going anywhere, mom."  
"I’m happy to hear that", she says, reaching for your hand and holding it fondly in hers. For half an hour, you both sit on your bed, talking and updating each other about your lives, then she tells you that she has to go to work.  
"Oh, do you really have to?" You exclaim. "I was hoping you could come and see my battle with Kukui!"  
She lights up. "I’m going to ask for permission, if they allow me to come I’ll see you at the beach!" She kisses you on the forehead and then runs out.  
You look at your Pokemon, only to notice that they have finished their breakfast, and obviously Infernape is working hard to finish yours too. Sighing, you let him do that, and with a gesture on the hand you also allow Greninja and Decidueye to do the same – you’ll have something to eat later, they’re the ones who need to be ready for battling. Grabbing the Pokedex, you check to see Sycamore’s last answer.  
_Rotom refuses to talk to me. If I may, ma chère, I will personally suggest you Talonflame, Lucario and Raichu. I’m sure that you won’t be able to come up with a better composition for your team, so I’ll send them immediately to the Pokemon Center of your city. Good luck!  
_ You giggle amused by his self-confidence and, when your Pokemon have finished breakfast, you run to the Pokemon Center to pick your team up.

 

* * *

 

You’re in front of Kukui’s laboratory a few minutes early. Smiling, you knock on the door, more self-confident than you were yesterday. Immediately, as if he was waiting for you behind the door, Kukui euphorically opens it. "Hey cousin!" He exclaims. His voice sounds joyful and you can’t help but widely smile at him. He smiles back and put an arm around your shoulders, leading you into the middle of the beach, where a curious group of bathers is already gathering, attracted by the professor’s strange behavior.  
Without being intimidated by the unexpected audience, Kukui raises his arms and invites everyone to come closer. "You lucky people are about to witness a historic battle!" He declares loudly. "The first champion of the Alola League is back and she will try to prove me – her substitute – that she still deserves that title!"  
At the beginning someone starts clapping hesitantly, then quickly everyone begins to clap their hands excitedly and shout in encouragement. The professor enjoys being at the center of attention, while you, on the other side, feel a little uncomfortable and look around in awe. You recognize many of the bystanders, and someone greet you waving their hands, to which you answer with a smile.  
"Are you ready?" Kukui asks, smiling happily. Someone in the crowd answers in your place. "Yes, she is!" You abruptly turn toward the point from which those words came and you smile – your mom made it on time! You’re so happy that she’s here to attend this first fight which represents the beginning of your new life in Alola, and you nod, facing Kukui. "I'm ready", you reply, and Kukui throws his first Pokeball, from which Incineroar comes out, as threatening and wiry as always. "Hello, buddy!" You can’t help but shout, and judging from the funny verses he answers with, he's happy to see you too. Kukui, behind the big Pokemon, begins to laugh and protest. "Incineroar, she’s an opponent, you’re not supposed to give her confidence!"  
Chuckling, you decide to take advantage of his choice and you send your loyal Greninja in the field. He’s pretty strong and superior in type – it shouldn’t be so difficult to defeat Kukui’s big cat. As soon as your Pokemon appears, all the crowd start to wonder in surprise and even Kukui admires him from afar. "A wonderful specimen!" You hear him murmuring, but before you can answer him, he has already addressed Incineroar to make the real battle begin.  
"Incineroar, go with Darkest Lariat!" He shouts. Without you having to tell him to dodge it, Greninja rapidly moves away from its course. Proud of his agility, you smile. "Greninja, show them what you can do! Water Shuriken!"  
"Incineroar, dodge it!" Kukui screams in response. With an agility which is truly surprising – given his enormous size – Incineroar moves from the trajectory of the shot. You pale as you understand the evident result of this gesture, and you try to shout a warning, but you just don’t make it on time and the shuriken supposed to hit the Pokemon hits Kukui instead. The professor is thrown several meters backwards and falls on the sand with a strangled groan, keeping a hand pressing onto his aching chest.  
Worried, you run towards him. "Kukui? Are you okay?” You feel like you are going to cry of worry, but it's useless - Kukui immediately gets up, as if nothing happened. "Woo!" He shouts, and you look at him a bit puzzled. "The most powerful Water Shuriken I’ve ever been hit by! Wonderful!"  
You breathe a sigh of relief, wondering how you could have possibly forget the strange hobby of the professor. Not everyone forces himself to get hit by all the different kinds of moves only to test their strength.  
"How many Water Shuriken have you been hit by, exactly?" You ask him laughing as you walk back to your place.  
"Not enough!" He says in response. Raising a hand towards his Pokemon, he yells a new order. "Incineroar, Darkest Lariat, again!" He shots you a malicious grin as his eyes light up, and you're surprised not to see a a little lamp switching on atop his head since it’s so clear that he has thought of a new strategy.  
He quickly moves his hand towards you. “Aim at the trainer!”  
“What?” You shout, softly laughing as you understand his evil plan. “That’s a low blow!”  
You try to protect yourself hiding behind your arms, but, as expected by the both of you, Incineroar doesn’t hit you. In fact, Greninja quickly interposes between you and the fire-type Pokemon and he unavoidably gets hit. The blow is too hard and he collapses on the floor, exhausted.  
You can’t help but laugh, amused by the absurd strategy, and you sweetly stroke Greninja’s head. “Thank you, my friend”, you tell him. Than you stand up and look at Kukui, who’s staring at you a little worried.  
“I knew Greninja would’ve protected you. Your bond is clearly strong”, he’s quick to point out, and you calm him down with a smile. “You’d never hurt me. I know that”, you say with a wicked tongue. “But”, you add, “I am going to hurt you after this. Get ready to lose!”  
After this small hitch, the battle goes on without too many problems. You struggle a lot but in the end you succeed in defeating all of his team, until his last Pokemon, the Lycanroc you’ve already faced and defeated several times, collapses on the ground, exhausted, and decrees your victory. You smile happily, feeling so proud of your friends, even though deep down you know that you’ve mostly been lucky. Your Pokemon would have probably been too tired to win if you had tried to defeat the Elite Four before challenging Kukui… He has certainly given you a hard time, but still, you can’t hold back your happiness when you realize you’re the champion of Alola, once again. The crowd around you screams and shouts, but you hardly notice it – you’re too busy staring at your professor in hope for a smile which could show you that he’s as excited as you are for the wonderful battle you’ve just ended.  
Kukui is kneeling next to his Pokemon and he’s tenderly praising him. “Don’t worry! You’ve been great”, you hear him murmuring. Lycanroc yelps, wearily jumping to his feet, and after a last scratch behind the ears Kukui gets him back into the Pokeball and stands up to face you.  
His face is serious, but his bright and shiny eyes suggest you that he must be feeling an incomprehensible amount of emotions. Eventually he smiles as you were hoping, and you feel so relieved you risk to fall on the ground – you strongly try to ignore the weakness in your knees as you smile back.  
You’d love to run to him, but you know that tens of eyes are fixed on you and you’re afraid to mess things up in front of everyone.  
“Welcome back, Champion!”, Kukui says in a hoarse voice. He opens his arms and you suddenly can’t find any more reason to refrain. You ignore your Decidueye who is cooing as he waits for praising, you ignore all the people who are approaching to congratulate on you, you even ignore Hau and Lillie’s astonished gazes from among the crowd. You simply run towards him, right into his arms, and you hug him with all your strength. You can feel his hands gently resting on your waist as he takes a deep breath and leans towards your ear.  
“Welcome home”, he softly whispers.  
That sweet sigh is all you needed to lose yourself. You forget all your doubts and fears, you forget the email you wanted to ask him about, you forget Sycamore’s advice and you even forget to be in the middle of a public and overcrowded beach. Releasing him from your hug, you close your eyes and gently take his face in your hands, pressing your lips onto his.  
He suddenly tenses up, his hands slip away from your waist, but it’s just a matter of short time – a few seconds later his arms are tightly wrapped around your body and he opens his mouth, heatedly deepening the kiss. The noise around you starts to disappear and you can almost feel the gazes of the audience on you, but you just don’t care. All you can think about is how good Kukui’s tongue feels against your own, how wonderful his smell is even after a battle, how soft his skin feels under your fingers. You can’t stop caressing his cheeks as you kiss him and he keeps rubbing your back, pressing you against his body more and more strongly, and you just can’t bear all the shivers he’s sending through you. Your heart beats faster than ever, but you could swear he’s just as excited as you for all what’s happening. You quickly remove his hat and hair-tie, just because you want to know how does it feel to pass your hand through his hair – you have always imagined it to be very soft and finally, you can check if you were right.  
It’s a bit sweatier then you expected, actually, but you totally don’t care – it’s still wonderful, just like everything that concerns him. You keep stroking his hair and you accidently pull it when a lock gets stuck in your Z-Ring. He groans in pain, gently biting and sucking your lower lip as a revenge – you would have never imagined a revenge could be so sweet.  
When he breaks the kiss, it just seems too early. He tries to avoid eye contact with you, while you desperately keep looking at him to be sure everything’s alright, to understand if it’s been as great for him as it has for you. He is slightly gasping, but he tries to hide it as he raises is arms towards the crowd, forcibly laughing. "Sorry, sorry!" he shouts overhanging the murmurs that have begun to spread. "It was the passion of a moment, the excitement of the battle, you know..."  
You try to stop looking at Kukui and focus on the others to see their reactions. After professor’s words, someone shakes his head in disbelief, someone seems touched by the scene and someone chuckles, amused. Only a few nods, trusting his words. You see your mother covering her mouth with her hands, her eyes are watery as Lillie, who has now moved next to her, firmly holds her arms and whispers something that you can’t hear. Hau, at her side, is desperately trying to hold back his laughter, and when he meets your gaze he shows you his approval with a raised thumb. Not far away, professor Burnet looks at Kukui with an expression which you can’t properly define – is it worry, resignation or just sadness?  
You look away from her, feeling vaguely guilty, and you focus once again on your mother, who doesn’t seem about to cry anymore and nods, convinced by the Lillie’s reassurances: whatever she has told her, it seems to have calmed her down a bit.  
You suddenly feel a warm hand on your shoulder and you immediately turn around to face Kukui. He’s softly blushing and you just can’t help but find it terribly sweet. "Get in the lab. Now", he orders, and you silently walk towards the house, immediately followed by the professor and by your faithful Decidueye. The big owl is cooing and his verses totally resemble a laughter – as soon as you are out of sight within the walls of the laboratory, you glare at him and get him back into the Pokeball.  
Kukui closes the door of the laboratory behind his back and immediately bursts out laughing. You feel truly relieved - you were afraid he was angry, but fortunately his reaction clearly belies you. "What a particular sense of timing, cousin!" He says between the laughs. "We’ve spent the whole afternoon together yesterday, but you had to kiss me in front of your mom, my wife and… Well, all Alola. Seems fair".  
"Former wife", you point out. The way he called professor Burnet is actually the only part of his sentence that you care about.  
"Not yet", Kukui says, trying in vain to calm down. "Legally, we’re still married”.  
"Just why are you laughing? It’s not so funny". You can’t hold back your sourness, but you really wish to talk to him about what happened and you’re upset by his constant giggling.  
"Sorry", he says, finally managing to stop. "I am just so happy, that's all."  
This is enough to sweeten you. "Happy?" You incredulously ask.  
He takes a step closer to you, grabbing your hand and nodding convincedly. "Overjoyed! I’ve been dreaming to kiss you since the moment I saw you standing in front of my door with your luggage", he whispers intently looking into your eyes. His face is so close that you find it too easy to lean towards him and kiss him again. With your hands still connected, Kukui gently kisses you back – it’s less passionate than before, but that doesn’t make it less beautiful. You’re the one who opens your lips now, giving him permission to tease you with his tongue. Sighing, he lets your hands go and catches your face, gently tilting your head to one side to be able to kiss you better. You place your own hands on his bare chest, finding it pleasantly warm.  
"You have icy hands", he chuckles breaking the kiss, and you hurry to move them away. "Sorry", you mutter.  
He smiles, and his smile is so serene and wonderful that you feel your heart pounding at the mere thought of being its receiver. He closes his eyes and quickly kisses the tip of your nose, making you suddenly blush. "It was still a wonderful feeling", he whispers. He hugs you tightly, leaning forward to be able to place his lips on your neck. He bites and lick it and you moan, overwhelmed by such a pleasant feeling. "Kukui..." You whisper. He abruptly lets you go, afraid of doing something unwelcome. "What is it?" He asks.  
You look at him in discomfort. All what’s happening is wonderful, but you also feel uneasy because you know it’s not fair. You’ve promised Sycamore that you wouldn’t have rushed, that you wouldn’t have tried to speed things up, and you personally need to understand Kukui’s feelings before letting yourself go, and yet here you are, already kissing him, without even confiding in him the uproar of emotions you have inside, your feelings, your doubts, your fears. You feel so stupid… And weak.  
Kukui is still looking at you, waiting for you to speak. You try to explain yourself, gesturing a lot - a bad habit you picked up in Kalos. "I’m sorry... It’s wonderful, but..."  
You sigh, you don’t know where to start. Watching you in worry, Kukui approaches to you. His body is now just a few centimeters from yours and your thoughts are becoming less lucid.  
"Are you okay?" He whispers. You break into a frustrated moan. "When you lower your voice like that it becomes so hoarse and exciting, it should be illegal".  
When you see him grinning you realize that you have whispered those words, instead of thinking them. Blushing furiously, you try to get away, but he grabs your arms, chuckling, and he leans towards you, gently biting the lobe of one of your ears before whispering something – you don’t even understand what, the situation is too rip-roaring. Noticing your embarrassment and your confusion, he laughs and let you go. "What an interesting discovery", he says. You quickly put some meters of distance between the two of you and when your back is against the wall you threateningly look at him. "Stay there!" You try to impose yourself. "We need to talk, Kukui!"  
"About what?" He asks, sincerely puzzled. You frown, making a gesture that seems to include everything – you, him, the room. "About… This!" You reply.  
"You mean the kisses?" He asks. "I don’t feel like talking actually, I prefer to do it again". He starts to get closer to you, but you stop him. "Please, stay there".  
He doesn’t listen. "Why? What if I approach?"  
"I won’t be able to properly think”, you admit with a low voice. He gently smiles. "And what's the problem?" He wonders. "Love is beautiful because it allows you not to think for a few seconds”.  
"Love?" You ask, skeptical. He turns serious, looks at you for a moment, then he nods. "Maybe. I think… Maybe”.  
That’s enough to you – it really shouldn’t be, you know that, but it is. You cover the distance with two steps and your lips meet again. Your hands reach his back, his hands reach your face and hold it tightly, as if it was something precious that he just can’t let go. The thoughts run away from your mind and even the insistent voice of Sycamore becomes a faded and almost absent memory. In the few moments you break the kiss to breath, your regrets reemerge, your fears return, but you just need to be aware of the wonderful way your breaths melt together to force once again your doubts in the blackest corner of your mind.  
You couldn’t say how much time has passed with the two of you just kissing, but when it’s finished you're sitting next to each other on the floor, your backs against the wall. Kukui has lost his glasses and hat, his tousled hair only adds attractiveness to his blushing face and his slightly swollen lips – you’ve never seen anything more beautiful. You wonder how you look like, so flushed and disheveled, but the hot way he’s looking at you leaves no room for doubt – you’re just as perfect, to him.  
He whispers your name burying his nose in your hair and softly breathing. You try to stop him doing that. "Kukui, please. I’m sweaty, I don’t…"  
"You smell wonderful”, he reassures you, and you shyly smile at that, pressing against his body once again as he tenderly hugs you. "What did you want to talk about?" He asks. You almost can see Sycamore’s angry face when you shamelessly lie. "Nothing important, we'll just talk another time”.  
"How about we talk tomorrow at lunch!" He immediately suggests. You look at him in surprise and he smiles. "You know, we have to go fixing some bureaucratic issues at the League – nothing serious, just a few signatures to prove you’re the Champion again – and I thought that before that we could hang out… I mean, have lunch!"  
You smile. "It seems a great idea to me", you admit. "But I don’t remember having signed anything when I left", you point out, and he shrugs. "It was a bit sudden, and since you were a minor your mother has signed in your place. But this time you have no excuses!"  
"I do not need any excuse, I'm happy to spend time with you”, you smile and Kukui gently kisses you. "That’s great!" He exclaims. Then his gaze becomes sad. "I have to work this afternoon" he mutters. "Kahuna Hala asked me to go with him exploring a hidden part of the forest where the new headquarters of Team Skull seems to be located". He suddenly lights up. "You could come with me!"  
You almost can see in front of you the faces of you mom, Lillie, Hau, Sycamore, and even the amused grin of your Decidueye. "I think I have a lot of explanation to give this afternoon”, you sigh, shaking your head, and he sympathetically nods. "I'll have to do it too", he sighs. "Especially to Burnet…"  
Then he shrugs. "But I won’t do it today!" He exclaims jumping to his feet. He helps you get up with one hand and smiles. "I’ll pick you up tomorrow”, he announces.  
"I'll wait for you”, you reply leaving him a kiss on the cheek. You stay there a few moments longer than necessary, then you run away from his lab, passing among the few curious people who have waited to see you get out of the professor's house.  
You run until you’re safe from their gazes, then slow down and smile.  
If kissing Kukui was a mistake, you have no doubts it was the most beautiful mistake of your life.


	5. Awakening

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "It's noon! We are supposed to have lunch together! You overslept!" He answers, staring at you as if you asked a stupid question. As if being in your room was the most natural thing in the world!

When you arrive in front of your home, you slowly open the door and carefully take a look around the room. Your mom is sitting at the table with her hands joined in front of her face; her thousand-yard stare is a bit worrying, but as soon as you come in she immediately notices it and turns towards you.  
You clear your throat with a few embarrassed coughs. "Hi”, you mutter, and she greets you back in a low voice. You’re about to run to your room, unable to bear the heavy silence that fell, but she stops you. "Can you sit down with me, please?"  
You head back and sit in front of her, pretending to feel totally comfortable with her request. She intensely looks at you, worried. "You told me you moved on…"  
"I know, I'm sorry", you quickly say. "I don’t know what came over me..."  
She sighs. "I can’t stop you from doing anything, but I think he's too old for you. Don’t misunderstand, he’s a very nice person, but you’re nine years younger and he’s in a difficult situation..."  
"Mom, I know", you try to stop her flow of words. "I was excited for the battle, that's all. It’s not going to happen again", you lie, feeling guilty.  
She’s softly blushing, now, and you’re afraid to know where the conversation is going.  
"We have never had the opportunity to... talk about this before you left", she murmurs after a while. "And now I suppose there is no longer need to... Well, you already know everything there is to know, right? About sex and everything..."  
"Yes," you stop her, furiously blushing. "And there’s no need to remind me, I'm not going to do... Anything like that with Kukui".  
As soon as she relaxes in her chair, a familiar warmth blooms over your cheeks at the mere thought of making love with Kukui. His clothes always leave little to imagination, and you find too easy, awkward and inappropriate to imagine him even without his usual attire. You try to banish certain images from your mind, repeating yourself that the fact you’re liking the idea is a bad, bad thing.  
"It could happen, you know… If you like each other and you’re alone in his lab…” She sadly considers. "As a mother, I'd prefer if you didn’t... But I can’t forbid you anything."  
You simply nod, eager to get as far as possible but unable to leave, locked in your place by her intense gaze.  
You feared that she would be mad at you, but what you see in her eyes is even worse. The only thing that your mom is able to feel in this situation is disappointment, and that’s the worst thing that a child could see in their mother’s eyes. You’ve let her down and even though the awareness is painful you understand her situation. When you left you were a little girl, innocent and naïve, and now that you're back your mom suddenly finds herself facing a young and independent woman who takes what she wants without second thoughts, who knows everything about sex and, as much as you try to deny it, would love to make it with her professor, an older man, a strong and complicated adult. You read all of this in her eyes, along with doubts and questions she doesn’t dare to ask, and when she finally gets up and you realize that the conversation is over, you jump to your feet and rush to your room, throwing yourself on the bed and closing your eyes.  
It's almost lunch time, but you aren’t hungry at all, even though you skipped breakfast. You know you have to eat something eventually, or in the afternoon you’ll start feeling so weak that you’ll find it hard to stand up. You're pretty sure your mom is cooking something, but you don’t want to sit in front of her sad look again, it makes you feel so uncomfortable.  
You had never considered that the opposition of your mother could be among those reasons that could interfere with a possible relationship between you and Kukui. Given the fact that she always let you do what you wanted, you imagined that according to her you were enough mature for everything. But then, there are always topics from which parents always find it hard to take distance, as there are always aspects of the lives of their children that they just can’t ignore.  
You wish you could sincerely reassure her, you wish you could swear that really, it was a mistake that will not happen again, but since you set your foot outside of Kukui’s lab you haven’t felt anything else but the desire to kiss him again – and it’s such a strong and overwhelming desire that no lie seems convincing. As for sex, the biggest of your mother’s concerns, you know that if the situation should arise you would never be able to say no to Kukui. It wouldn’t take much to give up under the caresses of his hands, those warm hands that make you shiver even when they randomly touch you. You wouldn’t last more than five seconds if he asked you to give yourself to him, with his hoarse and exciting voice and that terribly fiery gaze that makes you lose yourself without realizing it and removes all your ability to reason.  
Overwhelmed by your thoughts, you let them free in your mind until you get to those particular fantasies you had tried to banish. You start to imagine Kukui approaching you without his usual clothes, wearing only a tight pair of boxers. You imagine his irresistible look while he sneaks his hands under your shirt to get to your breasts, whispering sweet words in your ear as he teases your nipples with his fingers. You imagine him undressing you, slowly, in a sweet torture, starting from your t-shirt, unhooking your bra, unbuttoning your trousers and slowly pulling them off. He would start to touch you through your underwear, just like you're doing right now while imagining that your fingers are his – Increasingly bold and swift…  
You gasp when your computer catches your attention with the typical sound of an incoming video call. You groan in frustration, taking your hand out of your pants, feeling turned on and embarrassed at the same time about what you were going to do thinking to your professor. You really don’t want to answer, whoever it is, but after all you owe some explanations to your old friends – after attending to your brilliant performance today, they’d probably want to know when you’ve come back and how long are you staying.  
When you sit in front of the screen, however, you notice that nor Hau nor Lillie are calling you and actually, as you remember just now, they don’t even know how to contact you. The call is from Sycamore and you feel so guilty for completely ignoring his advice that you can’t even pretend to be mad at him for interrupting you.  
"Hey", you whisper when his smiling face appears on the screen.  
" _Bonjour_ , Alola Champ! I guess your morning was great!"  
You blush; his words are happy, but his eyes are darkened and you guess that he has already heard about what happened.  
"I called Kukui", he indeed adds immediately. "I wanted to know how he was and, I have to admit it, I was also pretty curious about your battle! You know, I would tell you that I’m proud of you for listening to me, but well, you totally didn’t".  
"It's not like it was planned or anything", you mumble. You’re unable to hold your curiosity back. "What did he say?"  
"Oh, Kukui was _fou de joie_ and can’t wait to see you tomorrow. I've never seen him so happy and considering the fact that in the last years I’ve seen him everyday on webcam because of you, it means a lot”.  
"I swear I’ll talk to him tomorrow", you mutter. "Today... It was a mistake...”  
"Oh, I really hope you’ll talk to him tomorrow because you know, according to what he said you’ve discovered a more pleasant way to use your tongue..."  
"There's no need to be so cynical", you grumble. He doesn’t answer, he just looks at you with a stern expression, and you would like to tell him that his scowl would be much more intimidating if he looked at the webcam instead of your face on the screen. Before you can even open your mouth, though, you hear someone knocking on your door and a male voice – with a known tone but deeper than you expected – announces his presence. “It’s Hau and Lillie here. Your mom opened the door. Can we get in?"  
"Sure", you answer smiling. While they sit down on two chairs you turn towards the pc and Sycamore takes the opportunity to give you the latest advice. "You’d better talk to him for real, _ma chère_. Don’t wait for too long, you know you will regret it. I’m thinking to your safety. And don’t call me tonight, I’m turning off the pc".  
You nod. "All right, Augustine", you answer, then you quickly close the call and you turn to your friends. You smile and open your mouth to speak, but Lillie beats you to it, her eyes fixed on your computer screen. " _That_ was Professor Sycamore?" She asks with wide eyes. You nod and she puts her hands over her mouth. "Arceus, he's even more attractive than they describe him!" You burst out laughing while Hau blushes and angrily turns to his girlfriend. "Don’t get your hopes high, Lillie", you comment. "Sycamore is married with his work, and I doubt in any case that Hau would be pleased to share you with him”.  
Your old friend laughs. It's amazing to see how much she has changed, it’s as if the travel to Kanto turned her into a different p erson; the shy and awkward girl you knew is now open, self-confident, funny, but her smile and her eyes still hold all the sweetness of the past. "If he’s married with his work, that means he doesn’t have a woman in his life. There’s always hope... Hau is the only problem", she concludes watching his boy with playful affection. He mumbles as you deny what she said, shaking your head. "There's already a woman in his life, actually. She’s big, bulky, and very jealous and territorial. Her name’s Garchomp". This time both of your friends begin to chuckle and you don’t blame them, knowing that the image of a serious and fascinating professor flirting with a big dragon-type Pokemon would make anyone laugh. You laughed too, the first time you heard Sycamore addressing to Garchomp with tender French nicknames, but then you got used to it. Sycamore is an eternal gentleman and every term of endearment or compliment that comes from his lips is to be intended as a demonstration of affection and kindness. You don’t even notice it anymore, used as you are to his _ma chère_ and stuff.  
You look at your friends feeling suddenly nostalgic. "I missed you, guys", you sigh, and Lillie approaches you and hugs you tightly, while Hau looks at you with a smile over her shoulder. "We missed you too”, he says. "It was so strange to meet you this morning at the beach. We saw all those people crowded and we thought that the professor was showing off again getting hit by his Pokemon... But for once, he was getting hit by someone else's". He giggles while you blush thinking about the brilliant performance of your Greninja. "The fault lies with Incineroar. He moved too quickly, I didn’t want to hurt Kukui", you point out.  
"Oh, but you did good! We haven’t seen the professor having fun like that in ages!” Lillie exclaims, freeing you from her arms, and Hau nods convinced. "Since you left, actually", the boy adds with a smug grin. You blush and Hau chuckles giving you a few pats on the shoulder. "Hey, he had troubles with professor Burnet for a while, so don’t worry! If you’re happy, that's okay!"  
You envy his lightness, his naïve and relaxed way of thinking. You would love to be like him, you’d love to live the emotion of the moment without worrying about the future, without all of your unbearable senses of guiltiness. "I don’t think that’s okay”, you sigh. "But not because of Burnet, I mean, of course I would be sad if she suffered because of me, but Kukui is the one who worries me the most. I don’t want him to suffer…”  
Lillie looks at you with sympathy, her special empathy allows her to see things that Hau can’t understand, she identifies your fears, your hesitation. "Professor Sycamore was telling you to talk with Kukui before, wasn’t he? Does he fear Kukui will suffer too?"  
“Well”, you answer, “Augustine cares about Kukui of course, but also about me. I think he’s more concerned by the possibility that I may suffer. He has already witnessed my sadness, he has already seen me broken into pieces. I think he doesn’t want me to get hurt again".  
"I just can’t get it", Hau interferes. "You and the professor have kissed! You were happy and he’s divorcing. What's the problem? Why should any of you get hurt?"  
Lillie easily notice that you are finding it hard to answer. She leans toward Hau and squeezes his hand. "We know so little about the whole thing", she whispers. "And I don’t think she wants to talk about it".  
You gratefully smile at her. “It’s not that”, you say. "I’d love to talk about it with you, but I'm afraid I can’t. It has to do with the reason why Kukui and Professor Burnet broke up and it doesn’t seem right to talk about it... It’s none of my business", you explain. "I shouldn’t even know about it”.  
"You look so sad", Lillie whispers. "All of what’s happening... How does it make you feel? How… How do you feel towards him?"  
You sigh, falling heavily on the bed and staring at the ceiling of your room. Looking carefully, for an accustomed eye as your own, it’s not completely white but it’s full of little sticky stars, those stars that shine brightly in the dark. You can’t always see them, but you know that they are there. You smile thinking that those stars are a bit like your professor, always next to you even when you can’t see him, when you try not to think about him, when you think you have forgotten him. You pretend to be strong, you try to deny your feelings, then the light goes off and he comes back, stronger and brighter than before.  
When Lillie sits on the mattress next to you, you slowly sit down, thinking about the question she asked you. How do you feel toward him? It's such a stupid question. The truth finds her way to your lips without any difficulty.  
"I love him", you whisper. Lillie winces and Hau triumphantly smiles. "I knew it!" He exclaims. "I’ve always known. That’s why you left in first place, isn’t it?"  
Lillie looks at you, curious, and you simply nod. You're amazed by how Hau can be both naïve and intuitive at the same time. He has understood your feelings in such an easy way, but he still doesn’t seem to have any kind of clue as to why the whole situation should make you sad instead of happy.  
"You… You have loved him for so long? Did you… Did you love him even when we were all together, when we were living all our adventures?” Lillie asks, confused.  
You nod again, your fingers digging into your hair. It’s just wonderful to finally be able to confide in them, after such a long amount of time since the last time you dared to. They are just like how two best friends should be, they’re kind, willing to understand you, patient, ready to welcome you and to help you even when your weakness led you far away from them for years. The way they look at you, the way they talk to you… It’s as if nothing has happened, as if you had never left, and all of this leaves you simply speechless. Perhaps there was a time when you didn’t realize how lucky you were to have two special friends like them, but now you can see it so clearly that you can’t help but regret for the umpteenth time the fact that you haven’t kept contacts with them during your stupid, silly, and fruitless escape.  
"Maybe I haven’t loved him since the first time I saw him, but close enough", you explain to Lillie’s astonished face. "And from then on, it has kept getting increasingly worse. I just couldn’t stop thinking about him..."  
"Not only thinking”, Hau interferes. "You couldn’t even stop _talking_ about him! When we met him around the region you were all like _Kukui here, Kukui there…_ "  
"Okay, okay", you grumble. "What matters is that I decided to leave to forget him”.  
"It didn’t work though", Lillie points out. "You must feel awfully…”  
"Yeah", Hau adds, "You have literally let five years of your life go down the drain”.  
Lillie sighs and shakes her head in response of her boyfriend's lack of tact. "Men..." She just says, and looks at you apologetically.   
"It’s fine. Hau is right, that’s more or less how I feel. But in the end, it has been five wonderful years anyway. I visited new places, made new friends, learned new things…" The two of them look down, afflicted, and you hasten to point out: "I missed my old friends, though!"  
You’re happy to see their relieved smiles. "By the way", you add, "I'm so sorry about never answering your emails…”  
"Oh, no problem!" Lillie exclaims. "I tried to convince Hau to leave you alone, actually, I told him that you would have written to us sooner or later..."  
"Which never happened..."  
"But he never listened to me", she concludes, pouting for the interruption while glaring to her boyfriend.  
Hau shrugs. "What should I say, I ended up thinking that the address of that Sycamore guy was not functioning and I used the mails as a kind of personal journal".  
You smile, amused by his last statement. "Sycamore received everything, and sent everything to me. It's only my fault if I didn’t answer. I think I was afraid that if I had spoken with you I would have decided to come back, and it was too early…”  
"Don’t worry!” Lillie says, catching your hands and squeezing them affectionately. "The important thing is that now you're here!" She gently closes her eyes and you suddenly can see the little girl she was five years ago, with her shy but disarming smile in front of which no one could help but smile in return.  
You hug her again, and this time Hau joins the hug almost throwing himself on you and tightly embracing you with his strong arms. "How about we have lunch together?" He cheerfully asks. "Indeed", he adds turning to you, "You know what? To celebrate your return, my treat! Malasada for everyone!"  
  
You spend the rest of the day with Hau and Lillie, feeling like the third wheel each time they hold hands, but too happy to be back with them to pay much attention to it. You tell them about your travel, your adventures, your new Pokemon. They ask you a question after another and answering to everything is difficult, but you try to answer them the best way you can. You even confide in them some of your concerns, including your fear of being a disappointment to your mother, and they do nothing but comfort and encourage you, reassuring you that if you and Kukui eventually found out to be in love, your mom would understand and in the end she would be happy. You too keep them busy with your own questions, about their relationship – how it all started, when they realized they liked each other, who confessed his love first – and they happily answer, smiling and completing each other's sentences. You find them so adorable! Together with them, laughing and chatting, you feel like you are back home – a frequent feeling since when you’ve come back to Alola, and you’re more than happy to realize it.  
There is nothing like spending an afternoon with old friends to help sleeping, but nevertheless you spend most of the night perfectly awake, too excited for your upcoming meeting with Kukui, which you would love to call a date but are too afraid to get disappointed. You keep rolling in your bed, overwhelmed by your fears and your expectations. You pretend to be asleep when you hear your mom stopping in front of the door of your room. She stays there only a few moments, probably uncertain whether to enter or not, and when you hear her footsteps moving away you breathe a sigh of relief.  
You fall asleep only when it’s almost dawn and finally you magnificently rest – although, thinking in retrospect, it would have been much better if you hadn’t slept at all.  
You didn’t think to set an alarm clock, and you feel so comfortable in your dream world that you don’t wake up even when your mom slams the door in a hurry to get to work. You keep sleeping blissfully, peaceful among your scented sheets until you feel a hand gently shaking your shoulder. You grumble and push it away, rolling on the other side of the bed and turning towards the wall.  
"Five more minutes", is your sleepy moan.  
"I’d love to let you sleep five more hours, cousin, but I booked the restaurant in forty minutes and we have to hurry..."  
You immediately wake up recognizing Kukui’s voice, the sudden adrenalin rush removing all the traces of tiredness from your eyes and from your limbs.  
"Kukui! What are you doing here?" You exclaim, blushing, covering yourself with the blanket to hide your nightwear from his eyes.  
"It's noon! We are supposed to have lunch together! You overslept!" He answers, staring at you as if you asked a stupid question. As if being in your room was the most natural thing in the world!  
"Not here in my house, you silly, here in my room! Besides, who opened to you? Isn’t my mom at work?"  
He scratches his hair, embarrassed. "Well, yeah. I... You know, I just came in... I always do... Everyone does it to be honest... I mean... Anyway, I called you from the kitchen and you didn’t answer, I got worried, and I came here. You're, uh, beautiful when you sleep".  
"Fine, I’m awake now", you answer carefully enunciating every single word and ignoring the compliment which he’s obviously using to divert you from the fact that he intruded into your home. "Get out of here”. He blinks, confused. "Why?" He asks.  
"Because you are in my room and I'm in a tank top! Out!"  
"What is the problem if you're in a tank top? I'm shirtless!"  
"Kukui" You shout, unnerved. "Get out! I have to get dressed!"  
Laughing with amusement, the professor kneels on the floor next to your bed and softly caresses your cheek. "And don’t you want me to help you?" He lets out a provocative whisper.  
You blush against your own will. "Kukui..." You disconsolately sigh. "Please, get out. We’re late and I want to take a quick shower before..."  
"I can help you with that as well!" He says without letting you finish.  
Fortunately, the embarrassment is stronger than the temptation. "No. I want you out. Now”, you firmly answer while hiding under the sheets.  
Finally he gives up and he gets out from your room, puffing. "Fine, I'll be waiting in the kitchen! Wear comfortable shoes!” He shouts.  
Comfortable shoes? You wonder. Does it mean you’re going to the League on foot? He can’t be that much of a fool.  
"A long walk is waiting for us!"  
Or is he?

 


	6. Hiking on the mountain

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Letters of complaints?"  
> Kukui scratches his head in embarrassment. "You know, I guess I’m not exactly the standard champion that people expect to see... I am always too relaxed and the challengers probably thought I underestimated them..."  
> "It's because of your clothing, isn’t it?”

Kukui explains to you his plan for the day, which includes lunch at the Sushi High Roller and then a walk to the top of Mount Lanakila, where the league is. You heatedly argue about it on the ferry to Ula’ula island. trying to reason with him, without succeeding.  
"Kukui, the road is long and most of it is covered in ice, you’re going to freeze in that attire. Not to mention route 12! Those bumpy stretches! I hate them, riding a Mudsdale is so uncomfortable..."  
"But that's the best thing, we don’t have to ride!" He happily exclaims. "We’re taking another route!"  
You look at him skeptically. "Kukui, the only other way is twice as long. It’ll take hours..."  
"No, no, there’s another one! A path that is present only on hikers’ maps! It’s on the back of Mount Lanakila, the access is just outside Malie city... It may be a little steepy sometimes, but we should be able to deal with it without too many problems. If you need help, I'll be there for you!"  
You sigh, not liking the idea in the slightest. Before moving to Alola, you lived in an area of Kanto which was mostly flat, and you only vaguely remember some hiking on the mountains in which you had been always involved against your will. You simply dreaded the activity; not that you didn’t have enough strength or agility, but you always got bored and used to sit on the first available bench refusing to move on. The landscape was always the same, it never changed, and you didn’t understand what was the point of such monotonous adventures when you could have lived a much more interesting one just losing yourself in a book. Of course, today you probably wouldn’t have the same problem – you’re with Kukui, so you’ll certainly have something else to look other than the landscape – and you’re used to walk a lot because of the wanderings in your last years... But still, it seems a bad idea.  
But you have no choice when you meet his pleading eyes. You see that he really wants to do this and maybe, just maybe, you try to deceive yourself into thinking that he wants to do this _with you_. You give up and let out a defeated sigh. "Okay, if you say you know the path..."  
A doubt hits you as you notice that he has never said that. "Wait, you do know the path, don’t you? It’s not the first time you use it”.  
He scratches his head in embarrassment. "Well, you see, Hala and I explored a part of it yesterday afternoon... The headquarters of Team Skull seemed to be nearby…”   
You know very well that this means that he has never entirely walked it, but still you feel partially relieved and you decide to indulge in his obvious attempt to deviate the conversation.  
"You have spoken of new headquarters yesterday too, but you also said that Team Skull has no longer any kind of organization. Isn’t that a contradiction?"  
Kukui nods. "You’re right. The place we’re looking for is not exactly a headquarter – it’s more a warehouse where they keep all the stolen things”.  
"I guess you didn’t find it yesterday?"  
"No", he sadly sighs. "Well I didn’t expect us to, anyway. But among all the ideas we came up with during our investigations this was the less improbable, so… We had to try". You keep silent for a while, watching together the waves crashing on the ferry, then he resumes to talk. "As for the path, you really don’t have to get worried. I brought a map”.  
He begins to rummage in his backpack, and you can’t help but tenderly think how silly he is when he tries to hide his nervous face as he realizes he has forgotten the map at home – you decide to pretend you didn’t notice it and keep watching the sea.  
After docking on Ula’ula island, you have to walk just for a few minutes – Sushi High Roller is really close to the harbor. If the access to the mysterious path is really located just outside Malie city, you have to admit that Kukui has perfectly organized everything in order to waste as less time as possible... Except for the walk itself, obviously.  
You lunch pretty quietly. You order a Ninja set, your favorite one, while Kukui chooses a Tanuki. You make idle chat while eating, even though the fact that having his mouth full fortunately prevents him from making embarrassing jokes or questionable suggestions such as those of this morning. Blushing at the memory you lower your gaze toward your meal and hide your face, eating faster.  
You can hear Kukui giggle. "You really must love Sushi if you eat it so voraciously!" He exclaims.  
You nod as you keep trying to avoid his gaze, but he continues to talk, not at all discouraged by your silence. "I heard that there’s a restaurant of this chain in Lumiose city, too. Have you ever been there?"  
You nod, glad that the conversation is continuing on neutral ground. "Yes", you reply. "They have an excellent tea there".  
"I didn’t know you liked tea", Kukui absently replies. Then he frowns. "Indeed, I'm sure you didn’t like it before you left! You refused it more than once!"  
"I got used to it in Kalos. I often went to study at the labs and Sycamore brought me tea every two hours, without even asking if I wanted it. At first I thought it was out of kindness and I didn’t refuse it because I didn’t want to be rude, then I started to suspect that he was using me as a sort of guinea pig for new tastes – I was never offered the same tea twice..."  
Kukui chuckles amused as you keep talking. "That must be why I’ve grown so fond of Kalosian prepackaged chocolate. Any change from his strange teas was more than welcome”.  
He sympathetically nods, gazing at you so affectionately that you can’t help but look away from him, overwhelmed by his emotions. Does he really care about you so much? Or are you just a a mean to forget all the suffering he has been through? You can’t help but let out a sad sigh.  
"Mind my words, cousin, your mood just swings so quickly”, Kukui points out a little puzzled. "What's going on?"   
You don’t answer, but he doesn’t give up. "It’s about what we had to talk about, isn’t it?"  
You nod, putting your chopsticks on the table as you suddenly lose your appetite. You’re not sure where to begin and Kukui waits, slowly chewing on his last bite of sushi and then turning to you with a sweet, comforting smile. "I don’t know what do you wish to tell me, but I really think you shouldn’t force yourself to talk about it right now if you don’t feel like doing it”, he says. "We have all the time in the world. Besides, yesterday I was pretty, uh, excited about the whole kissing thing, but today, really, if you want me to stay a few meters away from you so you can think clearly, I won’t try to seduce you in order to..."  
“I don’t want you to stay a few meters away", you stop him thoughtfully, and his smile grows. "Wonderful!" He exclaims, grabbing your hands on the table. "I found it hard just to suggest it to you”. He leans toward you, slightly pushing back his chair, and gently kisses you. You have now learned to ignore your sense of guiltiness, and you think there's nothing wrong if you concede yourself a few more hours of happiness before dealing with the dreaded speech.  
Kukui is in a very awkward position, and because of that the contact between your lips is clumsy and abrupt, just like the kiss of a bumbling teen who meets the girl he likes under the mistletoe – or, in this case, over sushi. You try to stretch out a bit to let him sit less uncomfortably but you end up bumping your dish – still not empty – which falls on the floor.  
You break the kiss abruptly, wincing, and while a waiter promptly rushes to clean the mess you and Kukui decide to stop putting up a show and pay for your food, chuckling and mumbling apologies to all the staff.  
Very gallantly, Kukui insists on paying for both – you try to dissuade him, but you have been a little low on cash lately, so you feel pretty grateful for the gesture. As usual, the owner gives you four heart scales each, and Kukui gives all of them to you. "I don’t need them, while you might find them useful to make your Pokemon recall some move”, he explains when you look at him puzzled. "Besides", he adds with a smile, "when I look at their shape I can’t help but think of you."  
You shyly smile while pocketing the glittering scales and precede him outside the restaurant, before stopping and letting him lead you – theoretically, he’s the one who knows the way.  
“So”, you ask, as you leave Malie city, "Is there a particular reason for this walk?"  
He shrugs, pointing at a grassy area. "No reason. The beginning of the path is over there”.  
You vaguely wonder why he changed the subject so quickly, but then you silently follow him. Behind a rather cumbersome tree, you see a small road that climbs up the side of the mountain. The road is terribly uphill, but Kukui is quick to reassure you. "It’s just the beginning. Then it’s less steepy”.  
You nod and follow him.  
After proceeding slowly for half an hour, the walk actually starts to become easier and you relax, glad that you can keep up with Kukui without too much effort. You’re not talking but it’s not an awkward silence, it’s a comfortable one. The professor does his best to make sure you’re fine; when the path is difficult or full of crumbling stones he lets you walk before him, to make sure you don’t fall putting your feet in the wrong place. Sometimes the path is so narrow that you could easily fall into the precipice below, and you mentally curse this insane idea that Kukui had, even though deep down you know that he would never do anything that could really put you in danger. You know he’s right behind you, ready to help you, and that’s comforting. When you find crossroads though, he suggests you a direction with a voice that doesn’t sound that much convinced at all – and that’s really less comforting.  
Sometimes the path is larger and Kukui takes the opportunity to move at your side and grab your hand while walking, whispering sweet, cheesy sentences in your ear.  
"Thank you for following me".  
"I'm so happy to be here with you”.   
“You’re beautiful when you walk”.  
“You’re beautiful even when you stumble”.  
"You're beautiful no matter what you do”.  
You blush and accept his compliments, cursing the mountain when the path become tight once again and Kukui is forced to leave your hand.  
When you get comfortable enough with a fast, steady pace, you begin to chat.  
"What are you going to do now that you're back? Besides, you know, champion stuff…”  
You frown, puzzled. "What do you mean with champion stuff?"  
"Oh, you know, you’ll have to accept challenges, test the Elite four members once a month and possibly consult me for a replacement, read and catalog all the letters of complaints that the League received in this five years…”  
"Letters of complaints?"  
Kukui scratches his head in embarrassment. "You know, I guess I’m not exactly the standard champion that people expect to see... I am always too relaxed and the challengers probably thought I underestimated them..."  
"It's because of your clothing, isn’t it?”  
He slightly sulks turning a moment to you, but then he nods resignedly. "Apparently, and I'm quoting a letter, _it is unacceptable that an interregional institution as the Alola champion is so heedless of his appearance to the point that he shows himself with the upper part of his body totally bare during a possible event of global significance._ No one has ever complained until I became champion, for some strange reason...”  
"It seems obvious to me that a lousy Pokemon professor is not important enough to arouse scandal", you calmly affirm, chuckling when he stops and turns to you with a shocked look.  
"I would be a lousy professor? You’ve just been given back your title and you immediately begin to denigrate others?” He asks bewildered.  
You look at him in the eyes and open your arms as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "Would you dare to deny that I’m more important than you?"  
"But – But without me the League wouldn’t even exist! How can I be less important than the champion?" He exclaims shocked.  
You can no longer hold back your laugh. When he understands that you were just teasing him he begins to chuckle, trying to maintain his look vaguely hurt – but miserably failing. "You sneaky girl", he whispers suddenly hugging you. You hug him back a little puzzled – if that's his reaction to your teasing, then you’re certainly going to do it more often.   
He leans toward your ear, lowering his voice. "And no, cousin, I wouldn’t dare to deny that you are more important than me. You are indeed... But only because it's you, not because you’re the champion”.  
You almost can’t hear his words, too busy glaring at the unknown landscape that you see behind the back of your professor.  
"Kukui... I think we are lost".  
He lets you go immediately, looking around.  
"Lost? Don’t be silly!" He says, but his eyes betray his worry.  
You heavily sigh. "We walked in the wrong direction. If this was the right one, we should still be able to see Malie city”, you explain. "So there are two possibilities: either this path is terribly long and goes all around the mountain, and I would immediately give up in that case, or you chose the wrong direction at a certain point”.  
He shrugs, confused, and you take the opportunity to make your suggestion. "Listen to me", you begin to get closer to him and put your hands on his shoulders. "We can call the PokeRide and go to the League on a Charizard. It was still quite a hike”.  
He shakes his head with conviction. "No! We’ll arrive safe and sound! It’s the right way!"  
You are quite skeptical and apparently Kukui notice it from your eyes, because he gets even closer to you and hugs you stronger. "Please, dearie! Don’t you trust me?” He whispers.  
You hesitate. "I suppose... It depends on the circumstances?"  
Kukui snorts and begins to kiss your neck lasciviously. Shivers immediately run on your back and you softly moan when he begins to gently suck and bite on your sensitive skin. After a few seconds he stops with a loud sucking noise and leans again toward your ear. "Don’t you trust me?"  
"Nice try, but no matter how nice this was, I won’t change my mind”, you weakly point out.  
He snorts again, letting you go disappointed by the ineffectiveness of his strategy. "You really are unshakable… Come on, just give me one more hour, and if we aren’t there yet I’ll let you call the Charizard”.  
You give up, nodding and softly touching your neck where you're pretty certain he has left a mark – and somehow you feel overjoyed about it. "Fine. I’ll follow you".  
He starts walking, happily, and you immediately stop him. "You know that you’re going back in the direction we came from, don’t you?”  
"Of course I know!" He exclaims outraged. "I wanted to see if you were paying attention".  
You laugh as he turns around and resumes walking, trying not to slip on a crumbling stone and turning immediately to you to make sure you're okay. It’s a small and simple kindness but it warms your heart anyway.  
"You haven’t answered yet, anyway”, he says as he offers you a hand to let you walk before him. You agree to precede him, and don’t lose the opportunity to tease him.  
"Besides being a terrible guide, you imagine things as well? I'm pretty sure you didn’t ask me anything..."  
"Not now”, he answers ignoring your comment. "Before, I asked what are you going to do now that you're back. Will you look for a job, will you study?”  
"Oh," you mutter, and you frown, focused on the issue. You've already thought about it several times, to be honest, especially back when you were in Kalos. Your internship with nurse Joy in Lumiose city has introduced you to the wonderful world of Pokemon biology, even though you knowfor sure you’re not willing to become a nurse. You'd rather do research, discover new data, new Pokemon, new moves, new evolutions. You are immensely intrigued by regional forms and you would love to study the environmental causes that led the outlandish species of Alola to differ so much from their own kind in Kanto. In fact, if you think about your future you can only see yourself wearing a white lab coat, testing and studying everything that comes to your hands.  
"I think I’ll wait the next academic year... Then I’ll study Pokemon biology", you mutter, hoping that he won’t make fun of your dream. After all, you've just finished teasing Kukui calling him a lousy professor and now you’re revealing that you’re going to undertake his same studies... Luckily, Kukui is too happy to notice. "Biology! You want to become a Pokemon professor then!"  
You shrug, unconvinced. "I just want to help with the research, I’m not looking for leading positions such as professors’…”  
"But you’d be great!” He exclaims excitedly. You can feel his pride in his voice. "And I guess that the admiration you feel toward a certain other professor has contributed to your choice, hasn’t it?"  
"Oh yes, totally", You can’t help but sneer. "Sycamore really has inspired me a lot!"  
You notice with amusement how a simple phrase can strike such a blow to his pride, and you can’t help but smile.  
"I didn’t remember you being so spiteful before you left", he mumbles. "Not that I don’t like it", he quickly adds. "I may look like I’m offended, but I didn’t have so much fun in years”. You smile casually. You find it easier to openly talk to him when you’re not looking at him in the eyes, so you take advantage of it.  
"I was _spiteful_ , as you say, before leaving too, but I didn’t dare to truly be myself in front of you", you confess. "You were my professor, I thought it wasn’t appropriate? Now you're a sort of friend I guess, so…"  
"A friend?" He asks ironically. "Do you passionately kiss all of your friends? I might be offended..."  
"Oh, come on!" You blurt, amused. "You know what I mean…"  
"Yes, I know. Friends with benefits!"  
"No!" You bring your hand to your forehead with a slap, then you turn toward him, hit by an awful thought. "Wait, is that what you want?"  
Your heart begins to painfully ache with that doubt, but he quickly reassures you.  
"No, you dummy! I was making fun of you for once".  
When you breathe a sigh of relief, his amused look becomes serious. He grabs you by your shoulders, leaning closer.  
"Don’t tell me you actually thought that was possible!" He exclaims confused. Judging by the heat on your cheeks you’re blushing again, and the sweet and worried look that Kukui shows you has the only effect of embarrassing you more. "How could you even think that I just wanted to..." He starts, then sighs deeply. "It's my fault, isn’t it? My jokes must have given you the wrong impression. Arceus, I must have seemed like a maniac this morning. It’s just… I’m so glad you’re back and I just let myself go. But I didn’t do anything wrong and I would never try anything unless you wanted me to! I mean, I don’t want just that from you – I want all of you!”  
You nod as he talks, without looking at him in the eyes, without providing nor asking for any further explanation – you don’t want further explanations, you just want to walk away from him, because if he keeps looking at you with that deep gaze telling you that he wants all of you, you could really risk to give in and let him have all of you there, in the middle of the path, between a rough rock and an uninviting precipice. He keeps looking with a gentleness and compassion that makes you feel guilty about your silly thoughts.  
You’ve been so stupid, but you haven’t been thinking clearly, and when the doubt has caught you, your fear has far exceeded your common sense.  
"Sorry... The jokes are fine, I like them. They are funny. It was a foolish thought", you apologize. Kukui leans towards you, still looking in your eyes, until he rests his forehead on yours. His breath touches your lips, and almost without realizing it, you open your mouth in a foolish attempt to breathe in his same air. Kukui takes it as an invitation to approach and so he does, gently kissing you and bringing his hands on your back. You tilt your head to one side, as always so overwhelmed by the situation that you don’t even realize what’s happening around you.  
That’s when something, or someone, bumps into you, strongly pushing you on the rocky side of the mountain behind you. You let out a small cry when you hit a sharp rock and you bring a hand to your hip, trying to ignore the pain so that you can open your eyes and see what happened. You feel a hand on your belt, pulling forcibly at the clipped Pokeballs, trying to take them off. You try to push away the stranger, who appears to be a young man completely dressed in black.  
Someone – Kukui, a little voice in your mind suggests you – is standing in front of you while he tries to push away the man, who is having a hard time in keeping the balance. You hear a distant voice: "Let them go, I’ve taken one”.  
You try to stand from the rock on which you are leaning, while you hear footsteps quickly running away. Kukui helps you, worried. "Are you hurt?" He asks. You shake your head –your hurting hip is the least of your problems right now. "Who were they?" You mutter.  
His look hardens. "Team Skull", he explains. "Maybe Hala wasn’t entirely wrong when he said that their headquarter was nearby. They were trying to steal the Pokeballs". He grabs your hand, glad that you're fine, but after hearing his words you pale and touch your belt, scared. "T-that guy... He said hehas taken one", you stutter. You feel relieved when you count them to six. Kukui, however, after your words slips a hand into his pocket, sighing disheartened. He turns toward the direction taken by the two men but they are already too far away to be seen.  
You grab his arm, shaking it slightly. "What happened?"  
"They’ve taken Rockruff", he whispers. You stare at him open-mouthed and he turns to you. "We have to find him", he says with a determination and calmness that you can’t help but admire – if they had stolen one of _your_ pokemon, you'd be freaking out. "You have to help me. Call out Talonflame, tell him to find them".  
You nod and obey, catching Talonflame’s Pokeball. "Hey buddy”, you mutter when he appears. "Not far from here there are two guys in black suits. They’re running away. You must find them and go after them, we’ll follow you. Try to fly high, so we can see you and they won’t notice you”.  
"Flame!" He answers, and takes off over your heads. He rises vertically for a few metersuntil he’s high enough to see the fugitives, then he sets off in pursuit. You and Kukui start walking behind him, cursing the fact that you’re not used to those mountain paths that force you to proceed slowly.  
Luckily after a few hundred meters the path widens and becomes less bumpy. You begin to speed up your pace, running behind your Pokemon, farther and farther into the sky.  
"Why did you bring Rockruff with you?" You ask panting as you continue to run. The question seems fair to you, since Kukui doesn’t normally use his little friend in battle. Rockruff is more of a pet Pokemon for the professor, so he usually stays at home most of the time.  
"Shut up, this isn’t just the right moment”, he replies sourly. You bow your head, surprised and hurt by his answer, and slow down your run.  
Slowing down with you, Kukui sighs you and softens his look. "Forgive me", he says. “I shouldn’t lose my temper. I brought him because I know I’m not as good as a guide and, you know, Rockruff... They have an excellent sense of smell. They are the best in finding a way home”.  
You don’t answer – you doubt you would be able to open your mouth without laughing and it isn’t the right moment to annoy the professor even more. Kukui misunderstands your silence and becomes even sadder. "I know what you're thinking. I’m a mess. I confess. I have no sense of direction, and I don’t understand anything about mountain paths and stuff like that... I'm way too distracted by my thoughts to pay attention to the direction I take and if I had the courage to admit that it was better to use the PokeRide now Rockruff wouldn’t be in danger. I just wanted to try to do this with you, because..." He hesitates, embarrassed. "Ah, I don’t even know why…” His face makes you realize that he actually knows why, but you’re not going to force him to tell you if he doesn’t want to - you perfectly know how difficult it is to open up about something you don’t feel like saying. You comfortably touch his arm continuing to run. "I wasn’t thinking that you were a mess, really. I was thinking that you were... Kind of cute, trying to hide that you had no idea where we were going. But I got the feeling that we would have ended up lost since when we were still on the ferry, when you were trying to not let me notice that you had forgotten the map at home".  
He chuckles and you’re happy to hear that he feels relieved. "Why didn’t you say anything?" He asks curious, and you shrug. "Well, it wasn’t really dangerous, was it? In any case, I knew I had the Ride Pager in my pocket. I guess that, under this perspective, the idea of getting lost with you wasn’t that bad". You blush as you say it, but Kukui just smiles sweetly, almost grateful; then he turns to the sky, and slows down, pointing something. "Look, Talonflame has stopped!"  
A few meters ahead, the rocks that surround you are covered by a sudden expanse of greenery. You find yourself in a small forest set against the side of the mountain. The branches and the tree crowns hide the sky above you, and you can no longer see your pokemon, but fortunately you have only one possible direction to follow.  
Just when you think that by now you should have reached the area where Talonflame stopped, you see him. He has landed among the trees and is trying to catch your attention flapping his wings; you hurry toward him, but his scared verses stop you . You look down and you notice that in front of you there’s a small, but rather deep, hole. Inside the hole, the two members of Team Skull are moaning from the pain in their legs and Rockruff, who has apparently escaped his Pokeball in order to break free, is jumping here and there trying to climb out.  
You're soon joined by Kukui, who looks down and starts laughing. You look at him confused.  
"Well, if this isn’t funny”, he says when he meets your gaze. "You see, they’re the ones who dig these holes. They use them to catch wild Pokemon and force them to join their team. I had to free an Oranguru from one of these just last week. They have fallen into their own trap”.  
You look at them and begin to laugh as well. "Well, they totally deserved this”.  
Looking at Talonflame, you point at the bottom of the hole. "Can you get him out?" You ask. He happily obeys.  
When he lands with a safe and barking Rockruff in his claws, you softly smile at Kukui rushing toward him. The small Pokemon hops into his arms and happy licks the professor’s face, while Kukui hugs him laughing and wiping the saliva from his cheeks. "I was so worried, my friend!" He exclaims. He turns to you, radiant, and raises his arms showing you the puppy. "We have to thank you! If not for you..."  
You stop him with a laugh, pointing at the two scoundrels still at the bottom of the trap. "They're idiots. You would have done great on your own”.  
Pretending to think about it, Kukui tilts his head. "I don’t know, maybe you're right", he agrees, his eyes twinkling. "But I would like to thank you anyway”. With a swift move he reaches you and grabs one of your hands, gently kissing the knuckles with a gallantry that you had only seen before in Sycamore. “I wouldn’t have wanted to share this adventure with anyone else but you”.   
You accept his gesture and his words with an embarrassed smile. You’re starting to feel a bit tired and you’re starting to think that maybe it’s better to postpone the visit to the league. All you want right now are some cuddles sitting on a warm sofa – certainly not to climb onto a mountain covered in ice and snow with a professor so lightly clothed he’s making you feel cold just looking at him.  
Fortunately, Kukui seems to have the same idea. "I think we should go home and postpone our bureaucratic duties to tomorrow”, he indeed says.  
"Good idea”, you reply with a smile.   
"And perhaps", he admits softly, "Tomorrow it’s better if we take the PokeRide..."  
You burst out laughing. "I agree!"  


 


	7. On the top of Mount Lanakila

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _“She has been so patient. She wasn’t angry. She told me that… That she would have left right away, then, so I could have some… Time to think. She told me to talk to her when I had my feelings sorted out. She told me that it wasn’t my fault and that she loved me – standing on the doorstep with her luggage, she told me that she loved me anyway"._

Kukui comes to pick you up the next afternoon. This time you make sure you’re awake in time, even if you don’t deny yourself the pleasure of staying under your warm blankets doing nothing for the whole morning, leaving your bed at noon. You go downstairs to have something for lunch, still wearing your pajamas, and you are amused to see that even your mom, who is enjoying her day off, is still in her nightwear. After lunch, you go back to your room, you take a long shower and as soon as you are done drying off and getting dressed, you look out of your window and you recognize in the distance the shape of your professor elegantly appearing on the horizon, riding a Charizard and followed by another one. Although perhaps _elegantly_ isn’t exactly the right word – the professor looks quite unstable and a couple of times he’s close to slip down, avoiding the fall only thanks to the accurate movements of the pokemon under him. Apparently, he was in a hurry and he hasn’t properly hooked up to the saddle; you don’t know whether to be happy or concerned about the fact that the urge to see you has even bypassed his survival instinct. You grab your backpack running out of your room and as you arrive in the kitchen you find your mom again, focused on a puzzle magazine.  
" _The name of the orphan Pokemon,_ six letters, the third is a _b_..." You hear her whispering. "That’s an easy one, it’s Kabuto!"  
"It’s Cubone, actually", you correct her. It seems incredible to you that she still doesn’t discern all the names of the Pokemon in your home region, but after all your mom has never been a trainer and therefore she never had the need, neither the occasion, to learn everything about all the different species.  
After writing down the correct name, she raises her head from the crossword puzzle and notices that you're ready to go out.  
"Where are you going?" She asks.  
"To the league, with Kukui", you answer thoughtfully, and you see her freezing. "I thought you had gone yesterday", she points out pretending to not care about the answer. You sigh and shrug. "We went down the wrong path and then we met some members of Team Skull. They stole Rockruff and by the time we finished chasing after them, it was too late to do anything else”.  
She slightly relaxes, nodding almost imperceptibly. "Don’t do anything dangerous", she shouts as you hurriedly close the door behind you.  
Kukui awkwardly lands and jumps out of his saddle just as you leave your house. "Hey", he whispers as he approaches to greet you. He hugs you tightly and you hug him back, hoping that your mom is not looking at you from the window. You place a light kiss on his lips and then you both mount the Charizard patiently waiting for you. While making sure you’re well hooked up to the saddle, you recommend Kukui to do the same.  
"I know what to do, cousin, I’m not a five-year-old kid who needs help riding his first Charizard", he mutters offended.  
"Of course you’re not, a five-year-old kid riding his first Charizard would have probably flown better than you did while coming here!"  
He laughs, scratching the back of his head in embarrassment. "The way from my house is so short that I thought it would have been pointless to hook up at all, so I haven’t even bothered", he admits. "Actually, I wanted to come on foot, but I guessed it would have been uncomfortable to walk for two Charizard so harnessed…”  
"I understand", you smile. You move on the saddle looking for a position that allows you to both be comfortable and not lose the small backpack on your shoulders. When Kukui notices it, he looks puzzled. "What do you have in there?"  
"Gloves, jacket and scarf", you reply. "Not everyone is immune like you to the cold of mount Lanakila".  
Then, together, you take off and quietly fly to the League, arriving on time, safe and sound, and without further nasty adventures.  
As soon as you land you already feel the need to cover yourself with the winter clothes you’ve brought, while Kukui doesn’t even wince to the temperature despite his usual attire. Trying not to shiver too much, you follow the professor in the large building in front of you.  
You haven’t seen that room in five years, but it isn’t very different from what you recalled. It’s still the same, wonderful, huge area that you will always remember as the place where your hard work, your sacrifices, your struggles and your courage have finally led you to the goal that you had so much hoped for. Kukui stops a few steps from the central platform and you do the same.  
“Uh… What now?” You ask.  
 "I have warned them that we would be here. Now we just wait", he says, slightly shrugging. He loosens his hair, then absently plays with the hair tie. You look at him puzzled and he frowns when he meets your gaze. “My neck was cold”, he explains.  
"Just the neck?” You chuckle.  
"Why yes, I have a sensitive neck!" He cuts short, smiling. You mentally note it – it might be a useful information in the future.  
He hands you his hair tie looking sweetly at you. "Would you please hold it for me? My pockets are full”.  
You nod and grab it, but you don’t even have time to ask him why he can’t put it around his wrist as normal people do – just as you’re going to, you see the gates of the four halls around you opening, revealing Hala, Olivia, Acerola and Kahili standing in the entrances. Olivia runs toward you, smiling, taking your hands and shaking them in excitement. "Welcome back!" She exclaims. "We have heard of your prowess, and we are delighted to welcome you again as our..."  
"Olivia", Hala stops her, smiling good-naturedly. "We agreed on what to say, haven’t we? Don’t jump to the conclusion”.  
"Right, right!" She answers taking a step back. She clears her throat. "Welcome to the League!" She starts.  
"During the years you've been away, champion, we certainly haven’t slacked off", Hala says with pompous and formal voice. "We’ve done our best to keep the level of the Alolan League as high as possible and we’ve always waited for you to come back, eager to see the only legitimate champion sitting again on her throne”.  
"Shouldn’t I be offended?" Kukui whispers in your ear. You hush him, while no one else seems to have heard his question. "We’re sure, champion, that you haven’t slacked off either during your long absence", Acerola whispers in her low voice. "We’re looking forward to challenging you once again to see your progress and to learn from your strength and your strategic skills as we’ve always done".  
"But”, Kahili adds, "Despite how ardently we wish to find out if we can finally defeat the champion, it won’t happen now. Today is the day we welcome you back, and certainly not without a great amount of relief”, she concludes glaring at Kukui, who tilts his head in confusion.  
"Was I that terrible?" He asks, but nobody answers. Instead, Hala pushes him gently by the shoulder, trying to force him to leave the room. "Come on, young man, you’ve already signed your papers this morning, you are of no use here. Go wait outside”.  
A pretty confused Kukui leaves the building. The Elite Four wait for him to be gone, then they start shouting enthusiastically in excitement and jubilation, someone strongly patting your back, someone hugging you.  
“You can’t imagine what a huge relief this is!" Kahili explains. "We all respect Professor Kukui a lot, but it was such an awful champion! He was always busy working or battling as the Masked Royale, he never came here to battle, if not once a month, to be lucky. People were beginning to give up coming and the challengers were increasingly less... Now I hope they’ll start to come back! And of course, the few times he came he was always half-naked…"  
"It would be a shame to cover those abs, clearly", Olivia adds, "But on certain occasions it would be... Appropriate, I guess".  
“Yeah, talking about that, he has mentioned some letters of complaint to which I’ll have to answer, is that true?” You ask, and Acerola shrugs nonchalantly. "Oh, you shouldn’t worry about that. We wrote most of them under pseudonyms to scold him, hoping for him to give up and leave the championship to someone more... Suitable. Unfortunately, it didn’t work, he just set the letters aside saying something like _Oh, when she comes back she’ll have a lot of troubles answering to all of these_ …"  
"You know, he has always been waiting for you, maybe even more than us", Hala says, suddenly getting serious. "Any criticism, any comment, any advice we gave him, his answer always began the same way. _When she comes back_... It was as if he thought you could have fixed everything just with your presence”. He glares at you. "It has been really selfish of you to stay away for so long without ever giving him or anyone else your news”.  
You lower your eyes, embarrassed by the truth in his sentence, even though you have to hold back an amused smile when you recognize in his words the same lack of sensitivity that you've noticed in Hau’s. He truly takes after his own blood.  
"But now it’s not the time to be sad!" Kahili points out.  
"Exactly”, Olivia agrees. "Instead, it’s time to sign these papers and go back to work”. She hands you an envelope and a pen and you impatiently sign everything with the best handwriting you can manage without having any type of surface on which to lean.  
When you finish complying to your duty, you promise to accept some challengers as soon as possible, shake hands with everyone and finally run out of the league, happy about the wonderful welcome you’ve received.  
Your happiness doesn’t last long however, it turns into concern as soon as you take a look around and notice Kukui kneeling in the snow, on the highest point of the whole Alola region, staring into space with his arms straight down at his side.  
You approach him cautiously, kneeling next to him and looking at him apprehensively. As soon as he notices you, his gaze becomes jovial, but you still have time to notice the spark of sadness it held before.  
"What's going on?" You ask softly. He shrugs. "Nothing important".  
"You can tell me what's wrong, Kukui", you try again, worried, stroking his arm, wishing for his closeness, his trust. The heavy gloves you wear don’t let you feel the warmth of his skin, but he still seems to get comfort by your gesture; he touches your hand, smiling at nothing in particular. "It's not important, really... Just sad memories”. He looks at you in the eyes, hesitant. "Burnet had asked me to bring her here. She wanted to visit the league and the only way to visit without challenging the Elite Four was to come here with the champion. Or, well, the substitute. Anyway, she was so eager to come…”  
"And haven’t you brought her here?" You ask. It hurts you that now, kneeling in the highest point of Alola with you, he’s thinking about his wife, but you try to hide your sadness behind a smile of compassion. Deep inside you still feel a strong sense of guilt for not having listened to Sycamore’s advice, and you think that letting the professor talk is the best way to figure out if he still loves Burnet and make everyone happy. You’re afraid, though, that you’ll feel too bad with what you’ll discover.  
"No”, he sighs. "She left home the day before”.  
"Do you want to tell me what exactly happened?"  
You immediately regret having asked such a direct question, but he doesn’t seem offended, he just looks worried. "I'll tell you, if you want, but only if you promise me that you won’t feel guilty..."  
"What an awful preamble", you groan in despair. You gesture him to talk with one hand and he sighs, starting to summarize the final part of his marriage, the final straw for poor Burnet.  
"You already know that in recent years she had begun to realize that I was neglecting her, that I no longer felt the same for her. She tried all she could to get my attention without being too annoying: she asked me out to dinner, she tried as much as possible to spend the nights in bed with me instead of spending them in her lab as she used to. After all, her studies are mostly about Interdream Zone, so it’s obviously easier for her to investigate it at night”. You sweetly squeeze his hand; he’s clearly hurt by his memories and what he’s telling you, and you're tempted to stop him, to tell him that you don’t care, but you know you can’t. He accepts your hand squeeze with gratitude, and keeps talking.  
"I tried to pretend everything was fine. We went out to dinner whenever she asked, but I barely spoke with her, I almost didn’t notice her presence. She talked about stuff, her day, her work, and I nodded without listening... I always felt alone, I never thought of her, not even... Not even when we were doing... " He stops, blushing, and when you understand what he was going to say you blush too. "Go on”, you mutter, and he chuckles, embarrassed, skipping that part of the speech. "Well, of course first I tried to avoid making things worse. I didn’t tell her that the reason behind my strange behavior was the fact that I couldn’t stop thinking of you. She didn’t realize it... Not right away, at least. Obviously she knew that your departure had hurt me, even though she didn’t know the exact reason… In any case, for a while I was pretty normal even after you've left. After all, you had told me you would have been away just for a couple of years, and two years are quick to pass. I more or less managed to live my life as if nothing had happened, for that short period of time". He sighs, digging a hole in the snow with a foot. "Then, you didn’t come back. Not only that, Sycamore said that you had no intention to come back, that you had started an internship that would have last at least another year, that you had not even mentioned the chance of leaving the region. I… I started fearing you’d never come back. The thought of... Never seeing you again, started to devour me from the inside. I wanted to see you again, to hug you again, tell you that I was sorry, that I wished that things would have been different back when you left so I could have found a way to make you stay”. He sighs again, looking at you wistfully. "Then I realized that things could have been different if I just had wanted them to. If I really wanted you to stay in Alola, I could have told you that I would have left my wife the day you turned eighteen, and we could have been together. It was a silly thought, I really didn’t mean it, it just came in my mind when I was half asleep, but since then it began to run through my mind more and more... And I just couldn’t get rid of it. I started distancing myself from Burnet even further, ashamed and feeling guilty just for _thinking_ of leaving her… And the more I stayed away from her, the more I thought of you, and Sycamore kept talking me about you... And I started to feel something strong for you, while my love for my wife was just disappearing. And that was just... Destabilizing. Then she asked me to bring her here. I said yes, I didn’t know how to refuse her. We agreed on it for the following Sunday and she organized every single thing". He takes a break, longer than the others, and you guess this must be the moment she left. It must be hard for him to talk about it. You can hear that he’s struggling to keep a neutral voice, but sometimes it shakes and your heart aches to the sound. "She wanted everything to be perfect. She prepared a dinner for the two of us on Saturday evening and she told me that the following morning two Charizard would have waited for us to take us to the slopes of Mount Lanakila. We would have walked... She had organized the excursion. She’s an excellent guide, unlike me. She wanted to have a picnic in the champion room… But fate decided otherwise. That Saturday… It was your eighteenth birthday and I… Lost my temper? I don’t even know how to say it". He sighs deeply, and you begin to understand why he had asked you not to feel guilty about what had happened. Needless to say, a strong feeling of guilt is already making its way inside you, along with a huge discontent as you understand the reason why he wanted so much to do that stupid trip yesterday. You thought it was a new experience that he wanted to try with you, but instead it was something he had planned to do with his wife, and you were just a replacement. You feel your eyes stinging with tears at the thought, but Kukui doesn’t notice it and keeps talking.  
"I hadn’t been writing to you for a year. I sent you my birthday wishes and, for some strange reason, I had the illusion that for once you would have answered. After all, eighteen years are a very important goal, in Alola".  
He looks at you and you shrug. "I haven’t seen them as something special", you mutter, trying to pull yourself together. "My mom has always given me a lot of freedom, she has always trusted me, so becoming an adult wasn’t that big of a deal. In addition, in Kanto and Kalos you come of age at 21, so, honestly, I hadn’t even noticed. It was a birthday like any other".  
Kukui nods. "Well”, he says, "It wasn’t to me. To me you reached adulthood that day, you reached the age at which making you stay in any way would have been… Well, legal. And by that day, I was already aware that I didn’t love my wife anymore, I knew that I wanted you". He smiles and you try to smile back, even though you seem to drown in an ocean of confusion, between the love you feel for him and his words that promise you love but only give you doubts.  
"Well, as you know, you didn’t answer my birthday mail... And I broke into pieces. That night, at dinner with Burnet, I didn’t touch food, I only drank wine. And I don’t even like it. The thing is that when Burnet asked me to tell her what was wrong, I was uninhibited enough to tell her with no problems. I told her that I didn’t want to go to the league with her, that I didn’t know if I even wanted to be with her anymore, that I was no longer sure I loved her, that I was missing you so much. I told her the real reason why you left and I admitted that I was sorry about letting you go". He looks at you with tears in his eyes, softly stroking your cheek, and then he lets his hand fall on his side. “She has been so patient. She wasn’t angry. She told me that… That she would have left right away, then, so I could have some… Time to think. She told me to talk to her when I had my feelings sorted out. She told me that it wasn’t my fault and that she loved me – standing on the doorstep with her luggage, she told me that she loved me anyway". He sighs looking at the mountains around you. "I felt so sad, and lonely... I wanted to talk to you. I needed it. And I called Sycamore, who was sleeping and apparently doesn’t like being woken up in the middle of the night. He was pretty annoyed. Anyway, I just told him that I had had problems with Burnet and I needed to talk to you, to see you. He told me that you had left that morning and I was almost overwhelmed by the joy I was feeling. I thought you were coming home. Then he told me that no, you weren’t, you were going to Unova, and then you were going to visit the other regions. He said that it had been a sudden decision, which he had not expected at all, and that if you had given him a single reason to suspect it he would have told me about that before. I was so confused, between anger, sadness and disappointment... I sent you an email that I still regret having written”.  
"I know", you mutter. "I read it".  
"I didn’t actually think what I wrote”, he’s quick to point out. "I was just hurt by the fact you had left on that day, not considering that maybe someone from Alola would have tried to get in touch with you to greet you or say something more important. I regretted it almost immediately. I decided I wasn’t going to write to you anymore, to not make the situation worse. I even tried to forget you, but I just couldn’t”. He keeps talking, unaware that you have also read his last email, the one Sycamore shouldn’t have sent you. "The months passed and I couldn’t pull myself together. I spent my days working and thinking of you... Then, one day, Burnet came and asked for divorce. She wasn’t... Angry, no, nothing like that. She was quiet, peaceful. She explained to me that if I still didn’t understand what I was feeling, if I still was suffering more about your absence than hers, then it was clear that I didn’t love her. And as she said that, she was so full of love and understanding... She told me that she wasn’t angry with me, she comforted and reassured me, she said that you would have surely been back soon. I don’t know where she was finding the strength to be that kind".  
You both keep silent for a few minutes, his hand holding firmly your gloved one. He’s the first to break the seemingly endless pause. "Thank you for listening to me. Shall we go home?"  
You nod, silently. You walk toward the Charizard waiting for you a few meters away and when you are about to get on the pokemon, the professor grabs one of your hands to help you. You look at him, surprised, but you accept the kindness; then he nimbly hops on the Charizard next to yours and you set off together. While flying side by side, sometimes he looks at you and smiles, the wind messing up his loosened hair. You would smile back, but the concern you feel doesn’t allow you to. You can’t forget the pain that you saw in his eyes as he was speaking of his wife. You wonder what it could mean, afraid to be losing everything you thought you had finally found.  
   
 


	8. Alone

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> __  
> “I mean, I’d love if you were the one saying that, of course. But you would never let me fill your Pokedex, would you?” He asks, quoting with fingers the word Pokedex.  
>  “Kukui!” You yell, embarrassed.  
> “Because, you know”, he continues, “I have an Onix down there I would like you to meet…”  
> “Stop that!”  
> “His ability is Rock Head and I even taught him the move Harden…”  
> 

While you were in Kalos, intent on studying, working and training your loyal pokemon, you often dreamt of coming back, hugging your friends once again and, of course, seeing again your beloved pokemon professor, that gorgeous man you’ve never been able to forget despite all of your efforts. Obviously, Kukui was in your dreams almost every night, and you remember a particular one, an inviting and recurring dream that you never got bored of: the two of you, together, hugging on the sea shore, contemplating in each other’s eyes an infinity of such beauty that even the breathtaking horizon during the sunset would mean nothing compared to it. It was so wonderful that you couldn’t stop imagining it even while awake, and despite knowing it was very unlikely to happen you couldn’t help but hope for it. And now, here you are, actually sitting with him on the sand just like you wished. You would have never imagined that one day your wonderful dream would come true and, above all, you would have never imagined that if it had come true, you would have done whatever it took to stop it.  
“Kukui, please, let’s go inside. Everyone’s staring at us!”  
“Let them stare. You’re wonderful, you deserve to be looked at”.  
“But it’s embarrassing! And stop looking at me like that!”  
“But you have such wonderful eyes, I’m drowning in them!”  
“Oh, what a silly thing to say!”  
He glares at you and you immediately correct. “I mean, what a wonderful thing to say! But please, can you drown in them inside the house?”  
He snorts, finally agreeing. You enter his house and place your backpack on the table with a sigh of relief, putting inside of it all of your winter clothes now that your town’s warm climate doesn’t force you to cover up in multiple layers.  
“I didn’t know you were such a romantic person, Kukui”, you comment when you’re finished, sitting next to him on the couch.  
“And I didn’t know you would have been that cold in front of my declarations of love!” He replies with a tragic look.  
You gently place your hand on his knee, willing to apologize to him, but before you can talk he’s already saying something that bothers you. “I guess it’s my fault, after all”.  
“How is it your fault?” You ask.  
“I’m so sorry”, he answers in a whisper, holding you tightly. “It was supposed to be a beautiful day and I’ve ruined everything talking about Burnet”.  
You shrug with sorrow and disappointment. Starting once again to talk about her wasn’t exactly first in your plans for the afternoon – you hoped you could leave behind your fears for a while and pick the subject up later, but apparently fate thinks otherwise.  
“Don’t worry”, you answer. “It was a matter we needed to discuss, after all”.  
He looks at you, confused. “Did we?”  
You sigh. “Yeah, I mean… I need to understand if you still have feelings for her before I can let myself go”.  
He softly runs the back of his hand over your cheek and smiles fondly. “She’s special to me, and she’ll always be. But if I still felt love toward her I wouldn’t be here with you now. It wouldn’t be right and I’d never hurt you like that. You’re too important”.  
“I know, you’d never hurt me _on purpose_. But…”  
“Now, now, let me understand”, he says without listening to you. You can read in his eyes that he feels insulted. “Do you think I realized that I was a fool to let her go and I’m now using you to forget her? What kind of man would do that?”  
“That’s not what I said!” You immediately deny. “I’m not talking about something you have realized nor about something you decided to do. I just think that…” You take a deep breath, unable to explain. “Come on, Kukui, you obviously still hold feelings for Burnet. You still call her your wife and you insisted so much on that stupid hike with me just because you couldn’t go with her back then…”  
“That’s not true! I wanted to go hiking with you because I wanted to try something new with you!”  
You don’t answer, your serious eyes fixed in his, until he gives up and sighs deeply.  
“Fine, but it’s not about the hiking. I truly have deep feelings for you. You have to believe me!”  
“I do believe you, it’s just…”  
“If I still was in love with her, I would have come back to her ages ago”, he keeps talking ignoring your attempts to explain.  
“Maybe you just haven’t thought it through!” You try again. You feel relieved now that you can finally reveal some of your doubts and paranoid fantasies, and deep inside of you, you love the fact that he keeps denying everything, despite his obvious inability to let you finish a sentence without interrupting.  
“You’re wrong. In any case, if I still was in love with her why would I come to you? Just to make you suffer more than you’ve already done?”  
“Actually, I was the one who came to you”, you notice. “I kissed you first”.  
“Oh, come on, we both perfectly know that I shamelessly flirted with you the day before. It’s sort of embarrassing how obvious it was. Using the information Sycamore gave me to my advantage… It’s terrible”.  
You giggle. “Anyway, the first concrete move was mine. But it doesn’t matter – if you please just let me finish…”  
“I’m not letting you finish because what you’re saying is nonsense”, he stops you. Again. “You don’t understand. All what I’ve done was because of you, not because of her. Everything’s about you. How can you think otherwise? It’s not like I haven’t received other offers since when Burnet left, but I never cared about anyone, I only care about you. How can you possibly think that it’s about Burnet?”  
“I didn’t mean… It’s obviously about me too, I know that”, you answer. It’s so hard to explain what you think, what Sycamore thinks, what everyone would probably think in a similar situation, but you have to try anyway. You have to tell him that if he kept thinking about you, it was probably just his guilt, not love. You have to make him understand, you need to be his voice of conscience, as he apparently doesn’t have one of his own. But before you can collect your thoughts, you pause, puzzled.  
“Wait, did you say you received other offers?”  
“Of course!” He answers, as if offended. “Tons of! Love letters, gifts or just dirty jokes such as _Oh, professor, my Pokedex isn’t the only thing I would let you fill…_ ”  
“Ew”, you comment blushing. “That’s gross”.  
“It is indeed!” He answers laughing. Then he looks at you with curious eyes. “I mean, I’d love if you were the one saying that, of course. But you would never let me fill your _Pokedex_ , would you?” He asks, quoting with fingers the word _Pokedex._  
“Kukui!” You yell, embarrassed.  
“Because, you know”, he continues, “I have an Onix down there I would like you to meet…”  
“Stop that!”  
“His ability is Rock Head and I even taught him the move Harden…”  
“For Arceus’ sake, Kukui…”  
He starts laughing waving a hand in the air. “My bad, my bad! Forgive me, cousin, your face was something hilarious…”  
He’s interrupted by your lips smashing onto his, making him moan in surprise. Despite your intentions, his jokes make you remember images that heavily populated your mind not so long ago and you can’t help but get turned on.  You forget the the topic you were going to talk about, your hesitations get forced in the blackest corner of your mind, replaced by new emotions that you can’t simply understand or control – but after all you don’t think you need to understand or control them, you just need to live them. You straddle him to kiss him better while you run a hand through his hair and pull it to tilt his head upwards. Kukui breaks the kiss with a soft moan, hugging you possessively to pull you even closer to him. This way you can clearly feel the awakening of that Onix he was talking about before and you helplessly blush, both because of embarrassment and passion. “Please”, he whispers in your ear. His voice is so exciting, hoarse and low as it is, and you’re so amazed by its wonderfulness that you almost can’t discern the words he’s saying. “Back out now or never”.  
In response to this, without even thinking about what you’re exactly doing, you grind harder on him, causing him to moan loudly. He grins as he eagerly kisses you and pushes down your shoulders until you’re lying on the couch – his body is so pressed against yours that you feel as if you were suffocating. You gasp for air and every breath you take is so amazingly full of his scent, so wonderful, intense. It’s the wonderful scent that comes from the sea when the waves shake it, rising sand and seaweed and salt, it’s the appetizing smell of Pokemon food when it’s just cooked, and that special scent you could never describe nor define, because it’s only his. It’s the scent you secretly smelled on his t-shirts a few years ago, whenever he hugged you to congratulate on your successes and you buried your nose into his shoulder for a few seconds, trying to hide your crazy heartbeat as you got as much information about him as you could. It’s the scent you smelled everytime you entered his laboratory, the scent that you reluctantly smelled on professor Burnet’s lab coat whenever she approached you to unveil her most recent discoveries. It’s the scent that you had missed so much and you can’t help but look for it with increasingly frequent breaths.  
Kukui keeps kissing you, without giving you a break, without giving you a moment to understand and accept what is going to happen. He lets your lips go only to take off your shirt and you find yourself lying under him wearing only your bra. Not that you mind it, you think, as your tongues meet in a haste that definitely has nothing to do with sweetness. His fingers frantically fumble with your bra clasp, uncertain, struggling to open it. You can feel them trembling on your body and you wonder why. Is it fear, excitement, rush? Well, it doesn’t matter anymore when he succeeds in opening it – that’s the moment when you lose your grasp on what’s going on. You can’t understand any of what’s happening anymore, all you can do is _feeling,_ and what you are feeling is wonderful. You feel his warm hands softly massaging your breasts, his thumbs tickling your nipples as he licks and bites your neck with exciting sucking sounds. You feel the fabric of his trousers under your fingers, and you don’t even notice you’re taking them off until they fall on the floor next to your shirt and his lab-coat. You feel his erection against you, only covered in his boxers, you feel his lips on your shoulder, on your chest, you feel his tongue against your nipples, you feel him licking and sucking them, you feel his hands on your shorts as he unbuttons them, fighting with the zipper in the heat of the moment. As he succeeds, he quickly takes them off as well as he does with your panties and finally, with a relief you would have never thought to feel, you feel two of his fingers easily sliding inside of you, his other hand grasping your hip as the fingers start to quickly move in and out. You don’t even know when he took off his boxers but you clearly feel his naked erection against you, you feel his hands getting away from your body to reach something on the floor, you hear his heavy breathing as he finally grabs his trousers and takes a condom from his back pocket, and you don’t even ask yourself why he’s been going around all day with a condom in his pocket, you don’t care, all you care about now is that he’s not wearing it but he’s slipping the wrapper in your hands – he wants you to do it, you don’t know how to do it, you’ve never done it, oh, never mind, you’ll just follow your instinct, you hope it’s fine, you just can’t wait anymore – and at last you feel him sliding inside you, something bigger has taken his fingers’ place, and after a first pang of pain, pleasure is all what’s left, a new and enormous pleasure in front of which your thoughts become even more confused. You had imagined your first time different, slower and sweeter and more emotional, but who cares, this way’s fine too, you love his rush to possess you, you love that he wants you so badly that he isn’t able to slow down, you love to feel the passion he’s feeling in his gestures, you love hearing his voice, his deep, hoarse, trembling, excited, wonderful voice whispering sweet words, moaning, calling you…  
“Burnet…”  
Calling you, by the wrong name.  
You’d wish you’d be able to close your eyes, cover your ears, pretend you didn’t hear it, but Kukui freezes inside you and looks at you intensely, apparently scared. He whispers your name, the right one this time, and quickly pulls out from you, then he reaches your cheeks with his hands and cups them, he dries your tears, and you hadn’t even noticed you had started to cry. He curses in a low voice as he sits and gets away from you, crouching in a corner of the couch, his hands in his hair and his eyes wide open. “Fuck”, you hear him whispering as you stand up, still shocked, and look for your clothes on the floor. You quickly wear them, you wouldn’t allow yourself to be naked under his eyes, not anymore, not now that he has not so implicitly confirmed your doubts. You feel dirty, you feel violated, and you really shouldn’t, it was consensual after all. You feel emotionally violated and above all you feel terribly stupid. You knew it, you suspected it, you had been warned, but still you didn’t listen, you didn’t even try to resist, in fact, you have been pressing for it to happen. You wanted it to happen and now all you can do is getting dressed and cry under the miserable look of your professor.  
“Was it your first time?” He asks, already knowing the answer but maybe trying to cling onto the illusion that he didn’t made such a mess of things. You don’t answer and he crouches even more on the couch, alternating apologies and curses that leave his lips in an incoherent babbling.  
After all, Kukui already proved himself very good in letting go the people he loves without saying too much, only to crack when it’s too late to go back. But he couldn’t have find a worse moment for his sudden realization. You finish to get dressed with your hands shaking, you put your shirt on backwards, and when you are fully clothed you take a deep breath, walking up and down the room a few times, trying to calm down and trying to ignore the sensations of pleasure and desire that you can’t help but still feel. Only now you realize that Kukui, the man you’ve always admired for his strength and happiness and unshakable confidence in himself and in others, is sitting in a corner of the couch, still naked, shocked, with hands in his hair. You approach him and throw him his boxers. He winces before focusing on you, then he relaxes, starting to wear it. “I’m sorry”, he says in a low voice. “You should leave”.  
“I’m not going anywhere”. It’s hard to admit, but you know that it’s time to do what you were supposed to do days ago – the right thing. “You’re in pain and you need to talk with professor Burnet, so I’m not leaving until I’ve knocked some sense into you. You have to call her”. It’s quick to say, but your short speech still has the time to break your heart. It’s the most painful jumble of words you’ve ever pronounced in your whole life and seeing understanding appearing on Kukui’s face is maybe even more painful.  
“Please, don’t… Don’t misunderstand”, he whispers. “I didn’t mean to fool you, I really like you”.  
“I know”, you reassure him, even though you’d like to shout in his face that you don’t care, that this way he’s only hurting you even more, that he should just shut the fuck up and carefully think before talking because apparently since when you’ve come back he’s opening his mouth only to spit bullshit. But you can’t, you perfectly know that you are both to blame and it’s not fair to make him carry on his shoulders the pain and the angst that you are feeling.  
“I didn’t want to hurt you…” He keeps saying. You snort, brushing a strand of his hair that had fallen on his forehead and running a finger along the edge of his face. You’re going to miss this so much, but you can’t stop now that he’s finally understanding what he needs to be happy.  
He turns to you, grabbing the hand you’re using to caress him, interlacing his fingers with yours almost desperately.  
“I’m serious, I don’t know what came over me”, he says more energetically. “It’s just… While you were gone I always thought about you, I dreamt you, I remembered you, I imagined you all around Alola, sometimes I even thought I had seen you and I chased for hours a ghost of my own imagination… And now that you’re back, you’re finally here and I can do everything I only could imagine in all these years, but I can’t help but keep thinking that I dealt with this situation in the wrong way, that I haven’t been fair to… to her”. You nod, waiting for him to keep talking, but hoping he doesn’t do that. He slowly frees your hand from his painful but comfortable grip and gets back to his speech. “That doesn’t mean I still love her. I don’t. And I don’t want to be with her, I want _you_. It’s just… I don’t know, in the same way I used to keep thinking of you, now it’s the other way around. I shouldn’t have… I didn’t want to… I didn’t think that… Please, believe me, I knew that under me there was you and I wouldn’t have wished for anyone else. I don’t know why I said her name”. He whispers deeply. “I really don’t want to hurt you. I’m just a mess. You left to stay away from me and now that you’re here I screwed up everything. I know now, I just can’t stand saying goodbye to anyone I love. Please, don’t leave again. I know it’s selfish of me to ask, but…”  
“It isn’t going to happen”, you stop his monologue. “I’m not going anywhere”.  
He looks at you with big, tearful eyes. “But I’ve hurt you”.  
“Yes, you did”, you answer. There is no point in denying it. “But you didn’t want to”, you add. “Kukui, I’m not mad at you”, you reassure him, and it’s true. You are mad mostly at yourself, you hate yourself for being foolish enough to hope that what was between you could be true, you hate yourself for all the wonderful things you’ve felt with him, for all the love and passion you’ve experienced, that brought you high into heaven only to make reality even harder to deal with.  
“But you should”, he mumbles. “You should think that I’m a good-for-nothing dumbass who took away your innocence lightly, you should hate me…”  
“I don’t. Kukui, among all this crazy uproar of emotions I feel there’s no room for hate. It’s not your fault… I should have stayed five years ago. This way, you wouldn’t have mistaken your guilt for love”.  
He shakes his head. “That’s not what happened! Even I can’t be that stupid. When you left I really understood I loved you, I realized I had been a fool to let you go. I tried to give you your personal space and let you take your own decisions but in the end, I couldn’t handle the situation and I lost myself destroying any semblance of romanticism in the relationship with my wife. Maybe now that you’re back I just feel sorry for letting her go without any decent explanation. Maybe I just said her name out of habit. After all I’ve only been with her in my entire life. Who knows?”  
You look at him, skeptical, but you shrug.  
“I certainly don’t. You’re the only one who should know”.  
He looks at you, full of pain. “And how can I understand that?”  
You sigh, starting to put his hair back in his ponytail using the band you find in the back pocket of your shorts. He gave it to you just a few hours ago, but it feels like ages have passed since those moments of joy and peace. “Well, pull yourself together, get dressed and go talk with your wife!”  
He frees his hair from your hands shaking his head. “I don’t want to”, he mutters, stubborn as a child.  
“Come on!” You try again. “I’m here now, you can stop regretting the past and talking with her will help you understand if you still love her or not. It’s the only thing you can do”.  
When he refuses again you suddenly make a decision, the most difficult one in this day which should have been wonderful but definitely isn’t. Pretending you’ve just noticed the hour, you blatantly lie to your professor. “It’s so late! I have some… Errands to run. I need to go. I’ll see you soon”.  
He nods and you run out of his house, feeling somehow relieved. As soon as you are out of his sight, you take your Ride Pager and call for Charizard. “Quick”, you tell him. “We have to go to Professor Burnet’s lab, on Akala Island”.  
Crossing the sky, high above the region, you finally start to sob loudly, while the wind, like a friend who tries in vain to comfort you, wipes away your tears.  
  
  
“ _Oh, ma chère…”_  
“Don’t say ‘I told you so’, Sycamore. Don’t you dare”.  
“No”, he sighs. “I would never say it. I would never say anything that could make you feel worse”.  
You wipe away your tears with an arm. When you arrived in Akala and explained Professor Burnet that Kukui needed to talk to her, the woman was quick to call a Charizard and head to the lab. Despite the anger she must be feeling toward you, she understood very well the situation and even said a few words to comfort you before leaving. As soon as you got home, you called Sycamore and now his compassionate face looks at you from your computer screen, while you can finally let your tears fall without being afraid that someone will judge you. Sycamore understands you, he cares about you and feels sorry about your situation; with him you can be your true self.  
“I’ve been such an idiot”, you sob, but he stops you before you can even try to keep putting yourself down.  
“No, you haven’t”, he whispers. “Kukui will talk to her now and that’s what he was supposed to do from the beginning, before starting this… _thing…_ With you. You haven’t been stupid, you’ve done the right thing. You’ve been strong”.  
“Strong people don’t cry”, you answer, but he immediately denies.  
“You’re wrong, _cherie._ Strong people can cry, when they are hurt. What makes them strong is that they are able to choose to get hurt if that’s what people around them need to be happy”.  
“But if that’s true, can strong people be happy?”  
He sweetly smiles. “ _Mais oui, ma belle._ They’re happy when they understand that in life there’s more besides what’s hurting them. Strong people know that it’s not necessary to be with someone to be able to love him, because they know that they can love that someone simply by living”.  
You smile – or maybe it’s more of a smirk, but it’s best you can do for now. “From the way you talk, it looks like you’ve had a love life before becoming a workaholic…”  
Sycamore bursts off laughing. “Who, me? A love life? Never!” He approaches the webcam and the resulting zoom of his eyes makes you giggle, your tears almost forgotten.  
“ _Ah, l’amour, ma chère! C’est magnifique!_ But, you know… It’s not really my field. There are only two _mademoiselles_ in my life – my Garchomp and you. So, cheer up and smile and if Kukui stops behaving like an asshole, turn your life around and go look out for your happy ending!”  
His words, his expression, his gestures and his extremely enthusiastic conclusion achieve the desired effect; after all, you can’t help but laugh when a renowned professor waves his fist in front of the webcam imitating a pirate captain prompting his crew to board a ship.  
“I’ll pretend I’m not offended that you equated me with a huge dragon-type Pokemon…”  
“My Garchomp is the most beautiful huge dragon-type Pokemon that has ever existed! You should be happy, you little ungrateful girl!”  
You sweeten your smile as he sits again on his chair.  
“Thank you”, you whisper, so softly that you’re not even sure that he has heard you.  
He stares at you a little more, before smiling weakly. “There’s a thing in your story that I did not quite understand though”, he says, then he pauses. “You… You told me he called you by his wife’s name. But were you having sex when it happened or were you just… Making out?”  
You sigh. You had tried to leave out that detail, but he’s too smart to not notice.  
“Sex”, you mutter, and you lower your eyes, waiting for a scolding that would make your mother proud. The scolding doesn’t come, though – not towards you, at least.  
“That asshole”, Sycamore whispers. “I’ll make him pay for it…”  
“It’s not his fault”, you add quickly, and you know you are right. “He told me to stop. I… Insisted anyway”. You sigh. “The moment before we were talking… I had finally done it, we were talking about Professor Burnet and what could be his feelings toward her, and the next moment he made some dirty jokes and I lost my mind”.  
He nods as he tries to hide a yawn behind his hand. You smile at him. “It’s almost 1 am there, isn’t it? You must be tired. Go to sleep”.  
He nods, looking at you apologetically. “Call me tomorrow. I’ll clear my schedule just for you”.  
You stand up, smiling. “Thank you, Augustine”.  
“And please, don’t overthink it… Or rather, don’t think about it at all. Think of something else”.  
You sigh, looking at the sky outside your window. “I’ll go out for a walk. I can’t stay home and I wouldn’t be able to sleep anyway. I’ll take Decidueye with me”, you add before he can advise you to avoid going out on your own during the night. “He enjoys so much night flights”.  
He nods and wishes you a good evening you before hanging up. You take your jacket, let your loyal Decidueye out of his Pokeball and hug him tightly – you decide to leave your other Pokemon at home, you want to be alone with Decidueye, he’s the only one who has always been with you, the only one who was there since the beginning of this adventure, the only one who can really make you feel better holding you in his comfortable and comforting feathered wings. You leave your house, under the observant eyes of your mother, who says nothing but carefully watches.  
You don’t know where to go and you decide to entrust your Pokemon, who flies a few meters above to lead you in a particular direction. You don’t understand his goal until you arrive in the point where, just a few years ago, everything started. You were exactly here when you decided to leave for Kalos ~~,~~ while Kukui, by your side, misunderstood your words and thought you hated him. Back then you were sad, but at least everything made sense. What’s happening to you now doesn’t make any sense at all, instead. Where is the sense in deceiving yourself, hoping for a happy ending, only to find yourself at the starting point? Where is the sense in hoping for happiness and getting more pain, what is the sense in having just sex when you’re looking for love? Where is the sense in your whole life since you’ve come back to Alola?  
You fall on your knees, on the same grass on which you were lying with your professor a few years ago, and you cry.  
He's not with you now. You are alone.


	9. Epilogue - A new beginning

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Kukui, I’ve come back four days ago”, you point out giggling. His words seem full of unnecessary sweetness and you try to make him notice it, but he doesn’t get the clue. He takes your hand and gently squeezes it, meeting your gaze. “Yes! And in four days you’ve given me back the five years of my life I had wasted after your leaving. The dinner, the fight, the excursion… These four days have been the most romantic, fantastic, exciting days of my life. This has to count for something, doesn’t it?”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello everyone! Before you start reading I need to say something. As you may have noticed, this is the epilogue but it isn't the last chapter. That's because I've written two completely different epilogues and I didn't know which to choose! So I'll publish this one and I'll publish the other as an alternative ending as soon as I finish translating it.  
> Enjoy the reading!

_Burnet walked back and forth across the room, her hands deep in her lab coat’s pockets. Sometimes she opened her mouth trying to talk, but only to close it immediately after, not knowing what to say. Her husband, totally unhelpful, sat on a corner of the couch wearing only his boxers, looking at her without moving a muscle._  
_“Now, let me get this straight”, she finally said after a seemingly endless amount of time. “You were here on this couch having sex just an hour ago and you accidently called her by my name?”_  
_Kukui nodded._  
_“And she didn’t even get angry?”_  
_He shook his head, sighing. “No, nothing like that. Probably in the end she didn’t care”._  
_"She didn’t care? That girl ran away from Alola five years ago because she couldn’t bear to be in love with you and she still couldn’t forget you. Do you really think she wouldn’t care about what you did?”_  
_Kukui didn’t answer so Burnet kept talking without pause.“That’s not true, and you perfectly know it. You wish it were true, because it would be easier for you to bear. But my dear, you have to stop thinking what’s easier and start thinking about what’s best for you. I know you better than anyone else and I know that you’re basically incapable of making decisions on your own, but don’t you think it’s time for you to grow up? Don’t you think you should stop with your regrets and try to be happy? You must stop thinking about the past, Kukui. Forget it, erase it. Don’t think about all the stupid things you’ve done, about the awful way you have treated us both. Start over. Decide once and for all what you want to do with your life and then live it, live it without fear and without thinking about what could have been different”._  
_“I can’t make a choice anymore, Burnet. It’s too late”._  
_“What do you mean?”_  
_Kukui sighed. “She’ll never trust me anymore. She’ll never give me another chance”._  
_The woman sat next to him, softly placing her hand on his shoulder. “Kukui, what you’re saying means that you’ve already chosen her. Cut the cord with the past and the uproar of emotions you’re feeling will stop. She’ll understand and you’ll be happy, and when you’ll leave your regrets behind you’ll finally start to enjoy your life”._  
_Kukui looked deeply in his wife’s eyes. “If you really want me to cut the cord with the past then please, forgive me”, he whispered. “Forgive me for not being there, forgive me for letting you fight for our marriage alone. Forgive me for not confiding in you, for taking distance, for keeping silent about everything. Forgive me”._  
_Burnet sighed. “I forgive you, Kukui. Just tell me one thing… For how long have you loved her? For how long have we been together uselessly?”_  
_He shook his head, uncertain. “I don’t know. But I’d wish you to know that I don’t think the years we’ve spent together were useless. They were awesome. You’ve always been a better woman than a stupid and childish man like me deserved… You’re one of the most beautiful and perfect things that have ever happened to me”._  
_“But it wasn’t enough”._  
_“Sometimes even being perfect isn’t enough. Some people need imperfection to see themselves in the heart of someone else. You were too perfect for someone like me”._  
_The woman couldn’t help but laugh ironically. “You’ve always been good at saying this kind of silliness”._  
_They both kept silent for a few minutes, then she started to talk again. “So, will you talk with her? You’ll try to make it up to her?”_  
_“I really don’t know what to tell her”._  
_“Tell her the truth”._  
_“And what is the truth?”_  
_“You should be the one who knows”._  
_Kukui thought for a few moments about it before answering. “I want to be with her. I want to start over”._  
_“Then go and tell her”._  
_Kukui nodded, watching his wife thoughtfully. “Burnet…” He whispered.  “Where did you find the strength to come here just to help me remind once again that I don’t love you anymore?”_  
_She smiled sadly. “Because I needed to close this chapter, Kukui. This way, I’ll be able to start over, too”._  
   
  
“I knew I would have found you here”.  
You try not to look at him as he sits next to you on the grass covered in hoarfrost. Kukui patiently waits for your answer, but you aren’t going to give him the satisfaction. You hear him sigh.  
“You know, in the years when you were gone I often used to come here. Even during the nights I spent with Burnet, sometimes she just woke up in the middle of the night and didn’t find me next to her. I was here, where everything started. Maybe, if I had told her from the beginning, things would have gone differently… But life’s too short to regret our past, isn’t it?”  
You snort, annoyed for the first time in your life by his long and inconclusive speeches. “You’d better go home, then. I don’t need you to walk me back to the door anymore”.  
“No one’s waiting for me”.  
You look at him puzzled by his apparently nonsensical statement. “What do you mean?”  
“Home is where someone is waiting for you. No one’s waiting for me anymore, so I don’t have a home to go back to”.  
“What… What about Burnet?” You hesitantly ask.  
“We talked. You were right, it really was useful, now I understand. You were right when you thought that I felt guilt towards you, and maybe that’s the reason why I kept thinking about you. But it doesn’t matter why we broke up, what matters is that we did and that changed something between the two of us. I… I don’t love her anymore, and she’s too good to hold a grudge, but that doesn’t mean that she would like to come back with me. Maybe we could have fixed our relationship if we had tried, but neither of us want that”. He whispers before resuming to talk. “I guess I’ve been a fool thinking to have fallen in love with you in these five years… But at least I was able to understand that she’s not the one I want to spend my life with. I don’t need someone who sleeps with me once a week because she’s too busy investigating interdream zone in the other six nights…”  
“And I don’t need someone who leaves his wife because of me, flirts with me, succeeds in bedding me two days after and then magically realizes to have unsolved romantic business”, you mutter. You try to convince yourself that knowing that he didn’t go back with his wife doesn’t make you feel really glad, but the smile you try to hide looking intently at the grass betrays you.  
“I’ve been such an idiot”, he embarrassedly says. “The greatest dumbass in the world. I should have realized before and I will never, ever forgive myself for what happened. But I can try to fix it. Please. If… If that situation should arise again in the future… I won’t be such an asshole. I’m fixing my life, I don’t have unsolved businesses anymore, my mind is at peace now”.  
You blush at the mere thought that the situation could arise again. You feel him place his hand on your shoulder and you hear his soft voice in your ear. “I didn’t mean to hurt you, I really didn’t”.  
You sigh. “Well, it wasn’t entirely your fault. I wanted it to happen and I rushed in it. I should have waited more”.  
You both keep silent for a few minutes, watching the stars above, then he turns again towards you. “You know, maybe I misunderstood my own feelings while you were gone, but what we’ve built since you came back is real”.  
“Kukui, I’ve come back four days ago”, you point out giggling. His words seem full of unnecessary sweetness and you try to make him notice it, but he doesn’t get the clue. He takes your hand and gently squeezes it, meeting your gaze. “Yes! And in four days you’ve given me back the five years of my life I had wasted after your leaving. The dinner, the fight, the excursion… These four days have been the most romantic, fantastic, exciting days of my life. This has to count for something, doesn’t it?”  
You don’t answer and softly smile when he groans in frustration. You feel him getting closer and his body is now pressed to yours, your legs touch, your face is a few centimeters away from his. “I’m not asking you to marry me, just try to forgive me and give me another chance. Let’s go out, take our time, just like normal people do. I won’t mess things up this time. I really mean it, I like you and I want to fix things between us. I want to cook Pyrorice for you again, I want to prepare you another cup of hot chocolate, I want to tease you and laugh when you blush, I want… I want to hug you whenever I want, I want to rise my gaze from my work and find you waiting for me on my couch, I want to bring you flowers with no reason and look at your embarrassed smile when you don’t know how to accept them…”  
“Well, I have an idea”, you stop him. The joy you can’t help but feel hearing his words is almost overwhelming. He’s offering to you a normal relationship, a concrete chance of being happy with him, and, after what happened this afternoon, it’s more than you even dared to hope.  “Do all these things, then I’ll decide if I can forgive you”.  
He smiles. He knows you all too well and probably he has already understood that deep inside of you you’ve already forgiven him. He leaves a warm kiss on your lips but then immediately breaks away, without giving you the time to demand for more.  
“I’ve been slow, but now I know what I want”, he whispers, his voice breaking. “Thank you for waiting for me”.  
You welcome his emotion as a wonderful gift. You think about the words he told you before and you repeat them smiling. “ _Home is where someone is waiting for you_ , Kukui… And I’ll wait forever”, you whisper. “Welcome home”.   
  
  
 


	10. Alternative ending - Stuck in the past

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> _Sycamore gives your mother a look, then lowers his voice. “We think that you should stay away from… Alola, for a couple more years”._   
>  _“Augustine”, you whisper. “I’m fine, I really am. I’m over it. I just want to go home”._   
> 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here's the alternative ending!

**SEVEN YEARS LATER**

 

“I wish to say, at the end of these wonderful years we’ve spent together, that I’m very proud of all of you, my wonderful students. You’ve all given everything you had, you’ve put so much effort in study and research, and everything you’ve done has brought you here! You finally reached the coveted doctorate in Pokemon Biology and I’m very honored and excited to be the one who gives you your certificates, hoping that I will soon be able to call you fellow professors”.  
A round of applause starts when Sycamore concludes his short speech. You lazily join it, clapping as if your hands were too heavy to lift. You’re absent-minded, your gaze wanders through the crowd, hopeful but resigned. Hau and Lylia, sitting in the front row, give you encouraging smiles, two golden rings shining on their fingers as they wave their hands towards you. They’ve come to Kalos from Alola only to be able to attend your graduation ceremony and you’re almost moved by how much they care, even though you can’t help but feel a huge disappointment as you notice that, together with your mom, they’re the only people you know in the audience.  
Kukui had promised he would have done what he could to be there for you, but apparently it wasn’t enough.  
When Sycamore calls your name you automatically stand up and walk towards him like a robot. When you started you fourth academic year you were more than happy to know that he would have been your teacher for the two following years, and you were even more happy when you discovered that he was also the responsible for the PhD students, but now you’d almost wish to have someone else giving you your certification instead of him, someone who doesn’t understand what’s going through your mind and doesn’t look at you with compassion from the top of the step on which he’s standing.  
“Congratulation, _ma chère étudiante_ ”, he whispers shaking your hand. He gives you a bundle of papers that you take without looking – it’s just the typical boring stuff. You walk back to your place feeling uncomfortable in the public eye, and you can’t help but take a last look at the crowd, hoping to notice something you didn’t see before.  
It’s useless.  
You sadly lower your eyes as you sit down and you happen to notice something strange in the papers the professor has given you. On the top of the bundle there’s an envelope that shouldn’t be there and you open it with shaking hands, hoping for who knows what. Maybe Kukui had an unexpected delay and has instructed Sycamore to give you a letter of apology? Probably not, but you can hope, at least. Of course, even this last hope is crushed, but it’s replaced by a great surprise when you see that the letter is actually from Sycamore and it’s about a job offer. You give it a quick reading, while in front of you the last students march to get their certifications.  
It’s a proposal for a fixed-term contract that would bind you to stay in Kalos for two more years. You are tempted to accept and you understand how proud you should feel, since Sycamore trusts your ability enough to offer you a job as soon as you’ve finished your studies, but you just can’t ignore your strong desire to go home, to be able to see your friends every single day, to be able to see… _Him_. He hurt you so much, he pushed you away, he crushed your hopes several times and in several ways, but still you can’t forget him.  
Inevitably, as you passively wait for the ceremony to end, you lose yourself in the memories of that fateful day seven years ago.  
   
  
_Three days have passed since when Kukui broke your heart in the worst way he could. You’ve spent most of this time locked in your room, dozing or reading a book, but every night, when the sun goes down, you always reach that grass field where everything started a few years ago. You can’t help but think of it as your place and you can’t give up the hope that he will suddenly show up to proclaim his love towards you, apologizing and promising to you a new beginning. Unfortunately, this wonderful dream is meant to remain_ as such _, a dream that will eventually be destroyed._  
_And indeed, it gets destroyed a Tuesday afternoon with the peculiar sound of a ringing doorbell._  
_You wait for your mom to open the door, but when the bell rings a second time you remember that she’s at work and that the unpleasant task is up to you; you get up from the bed and lazily walk down the stairs._  
_You look through the peephole and your heart races when you recognize your professor, looking so embarrassed and somehow even pained. He’s patiently waiting for a sign of life and you take a deep breath before opening the door and face your destiny. You know it’s not going to be a pleasant fate – Kukui never, ever rings the doorbell, unless he has bad news that he wants you to get ready for._  
_“Hi”, he whispers when he sees you. You quickly wave your hand and step aside to let him. You offer him a seat in the dining room but he refuses it, standing in front of you to look at you in the eyes as the two of you are speaking._  
_“I’m so sorry”, are the first words he says. You shrug, pretending not to care, just because you’re not sure to be able to say anything without bursting into tears._  
_“I’ll never be able to apologize enough”, he keeps talking. “I’ve been such an idiot. I wish I could erase everything I’ve done, but I can’t. I just…”_  
_“Cut it short”, you stop him, unable to stand a second more of his stream of words. “You’ve undone the divorce, haven’t you?”_  
_He nods. “We’ll have to work on it, but Burnet and I want to give it another try”, he admits. You fall on a chair and nod, taking a deep breath and wearing the fakest of all smiles. “I’m so happy for you!”_  
_He shakes his head. “Stop that, you fool _”, he whispers. “You don’t have to lie, not to me”.__  
_Your smile immediately fades away. “What should I tell you, then? What are you doing here?”_  
_“I’m here to ask you to forgive me”._  
_“Done. But now, please, leave”._  
_“Should I leave your house or Alola?” He asks with a sincere but worried smile._  
_“My house would be enough. You don’t need to leave Alola, I’ll do it”._  
_He pales and you can’t help but feel partially satisfied by the fact that you’re still able to manipulate his feelings. “You had promised! You can’t run away again!”_  
_“I’m not running away”, you explain. “I’m going to Kalos to study. College is much better there, but I’ll keep in touch, I’ll come back during holidays, and I’d be pleased if you visited and…” You can’t go on anymore. The stream of words that is flowing through your lips has broken the seal that you forced upon your feelings and you start to sob, unable to hold back. After a few moments you’re crying on his shoulder and he’s holding you tightly, whispering comforting apologizes in a humble voice. It’s incredible that, despite the fact that it’s only his fault if you’re breaking into pieces, he still is the only one capable of holding you together with a mere hug._  
  
  
“Hey? Are you still here?”  
You shake up from your memories and you find yourself staring at your best friends’ worried faces. You take a look around and you see that the ceremony has finished and the crowd has broken up; you’re the only one who is still sitting and you can guess you must have looked like an idiot, motionless on the chair for who knows how long. You smile and stand up, shifting your weight from one foot to the other and stretching your arms over your head.  
“How is it, guys?” You ask. “Thanks for coming!”  
Lylia and Hau don’t answer. They look at each other, then Lylia, holding her breath, whispers a few words in a sad voice. “Professor Kukui apologizes for not coming. We told him which flight you’re going to take and he promised that he’ll be at the airport in time to welcome you back, holding a sign with your name on it”.  
“Yeah, sure. Hope it’ll be the right one this time”, you mumble, but you immediately shut up in front of Hau and Lylia’s puzzled faces. You never told them what really happened between you and Kukui seven years ago, you just informed them that it hadn’t ended well and that he had decided to try and fix his relationship with Burnet. They were already feeling bad enough for you, so you thought they didn’t need to know every single detail.  
You look around searching for your mom and you see her chatting with Sycamore. You walk toward them and they both stop talking when they notice you; you catch a thinly disguised knowing look between them and after that the professor smiles fondly at you and starts speaking.  
“I saw you reading my letter!” He says. “Please, think about it”.  
You sigh. “I’m sorry”, you answer. “I don’t need to think about it. I’m very grateful, but I think I’ll find a job in Alola. I’ve already had enough running away and now I just want to go home”.  
Sycamore looks at you worriedly. “You could find a new home here. You’ve never really opened up to the wonderful choices that this city has to offer, but it’s truly _magnifique_. You could have anything you need here…”  
“I already know the city, professor, I have basically lived here for seven years. But…” You hesitate, then sigh again. “I just want to go home”.  
Sycamore gives your mother a look, then lowers his voice. “We think that you should stay away from… Alola, for a couple more years”.  
“Augustine”, you whisper. “I’m fine, I really am. I’m over it. I just want to go home”.  
He nods but doesn’t seem convinced at all. You turn to your mom, who innocently pretends she didn’t just listen to your conversation with Sycamore and hugs you sweetly. “I’m so proud of you”, she whispers. You hug her back, smiling for a few seconds in her tight grasp.  
“Is everything okay with Ban?” You ask. Ban, short for Banyan, is your mother’s new boyfriend. She met him a few years ago at the clothes shop; he was a client too hard to satisfy and she was too naïve to guess that the only reason why he kept going there was the attraction he felt towards her. You truly are pleased that your mom has found her chance to be happy even after your father, even though you’re a bit disappointed by the fact that her sentimental life is more eventful than yours.  
“Yeah, everything’s awesome”, she answers holding your hands in hers. “He told me to congratulate on you. He wished he could be here… But he’ll certainly be at the airport when you land!”  
“Oh, another one”, you mutter. “It’s going to be overcrowded”.  
   
  
  
Coming home is just as you imagined. You sleep for the whole flight and when you land you meet the people you love, full of kisses and hugs just for you. You’re the center of the attention for a few minutes, you almost feel overwhelmed by professor Burnet’s smiles, Ban’s handshakes, Kukui’s hugs, while your mother, Hau and Lylia don’t interfere, apparently satisfied with the amount of love they’ve already given you back in Kalos. They are firmly looking at you though, trying to guess your state of mind. Luckily, through the years you’ve become pretty good at hiding whatever pain you are feeling.  
It lasts for a few minutes, then their love ends and everyone goes on his way.  
Your eyes are filled with tears as you look at the scene in front of you. Your mom is walking home with Ban, Lylia and Hau are waiting for you, hand in hand, and Kukui has already forgotten about your presence, he’s just going away, walking slowly with an arm on Burnet’s shoulders.  
Everyone has moved on, and you just can’t. They have all forgotten their pains, their past difficulties, and you’re the only one who can’t do that, the only one who isn’t able to walk to the future, the only one who isn’t able to get over anything, not even your stupid feelings for a stupid married professor.  
Everyone has moved on, everyone’s walking away and all you can do is look at them, still stuck in the past.  
Perfectly normal, then.  
Welcome home.  
 


End file.
